CISLAC charges films producers on tobacco control

A non governmental organisation ‘Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre’ (CISLAC) has charged film producers to always merge scenes portraying use of tobacco in their movies with warning texts on the dangers of smoking it.

Senior Programme Manager of the centre Mr Solomon Adoga gave the charge during a multi-stakeholders engagement on tobacco taxation organised by the NGO with support from Tax Justice Network Africa in Gombe State.

He said the media is a very powerful tool for social influence adding that young people are influenced by the things they see in the media ‘and as such, film makers should always strive to indicate the repercussions of any problems they portray in their videos’.

“If we have films portraying acts of smoking, you can have the fear that, that may also influence the young people. We understand that movies are portraits of life and if you want to portray some characters, you have to depict them in their true forms. But what is important is to take lessons from best practices.

“Recognising that these can influence young people, we expect that scenes that have smoking should carry health warnings at that point in time. This is done in Bollywood.”, he suggested.

Solomon explained that the meeting was aimed at enlightening the participants who include civil society organisations, traditional leaders and journalists on the need to collectively advocate for high taxation on tobacco with a view to reducing drastically its consumption among the public.