The Weinstein Co. will be the first motion picture firm to embed anti-smoking public service announcements in DVD versions of movies that depict smoking, according to Attorney General Bill Lockyer.

Beginning with the December DVD release of "Clerks II," the company's upcoming DVDs will include an anti-smoking ad created by the American Legacy Foundation.

A tobacco-use prevention and cessation organization created by the 1998 tobacco litigation Master Settlement Agreement, the foundation produced three PSAs for movie studios to insert in DVDs.

Titled "Body Bags," "1200" and "Shards of Glass," the messages have been audience-tested and proven to be effective with youths. The "1200" PSA will run in the "Clerks II" DVD.

Weinstein responded to a September letter sent by Lockyer and 40 other state attorney generals to the CEOs of Hollywood's 13 major motion picture companies.

The letter stated that the antismoking PSAs were available at no cost for the studios' unlimited use in DVDs and other home-viewing formats. To date, only Weinstein has responded to the offer.

Cheryl G. Healton, foundation president and CEO, said, "Our hope is that Weinstein's bold move sets a trend with other decision makers in Hollywood. It is a simple way to prevent thousands of youth from smoking and can ultimately reduce tobacco addiction and premature death."

Tobacco use remains the No. 1 preventable cause of death in the United States. Studies show 80 percent of adult smokers start smoking before age 18. Additionally, research has demonstrated that teens are strongly influenced by seeing actors they idolize smoke on screen, regardless of the characters they play.

In June 2003, a research team from Dartmouth Medical School published a study that showed exposure to smoking in movies has a significant impact on youth initiation of smoking.

Funded by the National Cancer Institute, the study found that children ages 10 to 14 who watched the highest amount of smoking in movies were nearly three times more likely to start smoking than those children who observed the least amount of smoking in movies.

While recognizing the need for further research, the Dartmouth team stated, "The effect of exposure to movie smoking is important, both because the effect on smoking initiation is moderately strong and because the exposure is almost universal.

"Based on the lists of 50 randomly selected movies, only zero to 2 percent of participants were unexposed to movie smoking.

"If the link between exposure to smoking in movies and smoking initiation proves to be causal, our data suggest that eliminating adolescents' exposure to movie smoking could reduce smoking initiation by half."