Censorious anti-smoking fanatics

This has to go straight into the top twenty of the maddest things the health zealots have ever done. Some bloke from California, supported by Stanton Glantz, has launched a lawsuit against the following organisations: the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Parmount Pictures, Disney, Sony, Universal, Warner Bros., Twentieth Century Fox and the National Association of Theatre Owners.

Why? Because they have allowed smoking to be portrayed in movies that can be viewed by people under the age of 17.

I am not making this up. You can read the plaintiff's complaint here. He has swallowed every one of Glantz's ludicrous claims...

During the period 2012 through the present, defendants’ film rating system – certified and rated thousands of films featuring tobacco imagery as suitable and appropriate for children under the age of seventeen without a parent or guardian, causing over 1.1 million children under the age of seventeen to become addicted to nicotine and will cause the eventual premature death of 360,000 of such nicotine addicts from tobacco caused diseases including lung cancer, heart disease, stroke and emphysema.

As Hollywood Reporter points out, there is a First Amendment issue at stake here and the case 'could open up a whole new range of lawsuits blaming Hollywood for helping cause gun deaths and other social calamities'

The MPAA has responded, saying:

'We are confident that the courts will recognize the MPAA’s First Amendment right to provide information to parents so that they may make appropriate movie-going decisions for their children.'

That sounds about right, although it will be amusing to see Stanton Glantz's vast body of junk science tested in court.