Chinanews, Beijing, Feb. 1 – “Nowadays, whenever one turns on TV, one will see lots of smoking scenes appearing in TV series, especially in crime action films, where the heads of public security bureaus or crime investigation teams are often shown pondering with a cigarette in hand. These smoking scenes will have a very bad impact on adolescents,” said Gu Jin, a deputy to the Beijing Municipal People’s Congress.

 

He voiced his concern about this problem on Tuesday. He submitted a proposal to this year’s Beijing Municipal People’s Congress Session, urging local government to restrict those smoking scenes in films and TV series, the Beijing Evening News reported.

 

As a doctor working in the Beijing Cancer Hospital, he said that most lung cancer patients got the disease by smoking. Statistics show that among the 1.1 billion smokers in the world, 350 million are in China. Every year, some one million people die of diseases related with smoking.

 

“At present, smoking scenes are often seen in films and TV series. In crime action films, whenever the crime investigation team head is thinking over some problem, he will always light a cigarette. As a result, boys often think that smoking is very ‘masculine.’ Such thinking will have a very bad effect on their future growth,” Gu said.

 

He urged that related authorities should enact some laws or regulations restricting such smoking scenes in films and TV series. Such scenes should also be restricted in film posters and other promotion commercials.