Smoking remains the leading preventable cause of death in Canada and the world, killing one in two smokers, or 45,000 Canadians annually.
Smoking accounts for 10 per cent of all deaths in Canada, and kills more people than alcohol, drugs, car accidents, murder, suicide and AIDS combined.
The tobacco industry has repeatedly lied about what they knew and when they knew it, intentionally manufactured controversy where none existed, deliberately increased the addictiveness of cigarettes, and targeted women, children and minority groups.
The tobacco industry must continue to find ways to market to children if they hope to survive.
They know that about 90 per cent of smokers start before age 18, and if they can't addict someone by then, it is highly unlikely that person would ever become their customer.
Movies are one of the main legal avenues remaining for the industry to (indirectly) market to children.
Numerous studies have shown that smoking in movies makes teens more likely to try smoking.
In fact, a review study suggested that as much as 37 per cent of youth smoking initiation is due to smoking in movies. The U.S. Surgeon General has concluded that this is causal, and that simple ratings changes could reduce the number of teen smokers by nearly one in five (18 per cent), and prevent one million deaths from smoking among U.S. children alive today.
In Canada, the ratings systems are even worse, with 86 per cent of movies featuring tobacco use being youth-rated (smokefreemovies.ca).
Carrie Fisher was a lifelong smoker who died at age 60 from a sudden heart attack.
Tragic, but unfortunately all too typical an outcome.
She had also fought mental health and addiction battles.
The prevalence of smoking is disproportionately elevated in both of these groups, and despite being traditionally viewed as their "lesser problem" during life, it most often ends up being the cause of their deaths.
Many mental health professionals have now begun to address nicotine addiction head-on in their patients as a result.
Fisher's death, while very sad, can be turned into a meaningful public teaching moment.
There are endless opportunities for action against the tobacco industry beyond just restricting smokings' superfluous depiction in movies, on TV and in videos.
Age limits for purchase should be increased to 21 (recently done in Hawaii, California, NYC, Boston, Kansas City, and many other U.S. cities), increase cigarette taxes, institute plain packaging, divest governmental pension fund (and private mutual fund) tobacco holdings, ban smoking in multi-unit dwellings and outdoor gathering areas, and dramatically increase anti-tobacco governmental expenditures (currently only one per cent of tobacco tax income).
Most importantly, recruit Hollywood's help and take control of smoking's image - show that it truly is not cool, but instead, a never-ending, beauty-and-health-destroying, poverty-inducing pathophysiological battle against nicotine withdrawal that mostly traps society's weakest (and least enviable) members.
Maybe Princess Leia can help us defeat true organized evil after all.
Dr. Stuart H. Kreisman is an endocrinologist at St. Paul's Hospital and a Clinical Assistant Professor at UBC.
