Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, October 26, 1993                   TAG: 9310260097
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

IS TV A SMOKING SECTION IN A NONSMOKING COUNTRY?

Colombo solves murder after murder while chewing his stubby cigar, and "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" fantasizes about success and imagines himself smoking a pipe.

TV's good guys are smoking more than they have in decades, linking cigarettes to wealth, success and glamour while the nation at large is working hard to kick the habit, researchers report.

An analysis of 158 comedies and dramas showed that 24 percent of the programs contained at least one shot of smoking, tobacco billboards, ashtrays or smoke-filled rooms, the authors said.

"The people who are smoking are the high-profile, successful role models," said Stanton Glantz of the University of California, San Francisco.

"Whereas the reality of smoking is it's declining in this country and becoming more concentrated in the lower classes and the unsuccessful," he said.

Glantz recorded one "tobacco event" in every 85 minutes of prime time dramas and comedies recorded last fall. From 1950-1963 the rate was one every 27 minutes, but it dropped to once every two hours in the late '70s. Now, Glantz said, it's coming back.

The research is to be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.

Glantz's colleague, Anna Hazan of the university's Institute for Health Policy Studies, said the concern is that the smoking by admired characters is sending the wrong message to youngsters.