Vanguard News
Smoking now glamourised in Nigerian movies— Activist
On
Oluchi Joy Robert
The World Health Organisation, WHO, says over eight million people die annually from tobacco-related smoke. Most of these deaths occur in low-and middle-income countries. The tobacco industry is known to target new smokers, especially the youths through visuals that glamourise smoking. Because of this, film hubs like Hollywood and Bollywood have banned smoking in movies.
Fourteen years ago, precisely in 2007, a screening of 10 randomly selected movies by tobacco control activists in Nigeria showed that the tobacco industry might have been using Nollywood to promote tobacco smoking. 10 movies screened at the time were found to have unnecessary smoking scenes and glamourised smoking. In 2020 a random selection and preview of 36 films also showed the same glamourisation of smoking observed in 2007.