From the Washington Post today:

Depictions of smoking in movies will now be a factor when deciding what a film’s rating will be, possibly making a PG-13 movie R-rated, the Motion Picture Association of America said yesterday. The policy affects only new movies.
Along with violence, depictions of sex, adult language and other content considerations, ratings organizations will examine new releases to determine if they glamorize smoking or if it is pervasive through the films, even among adults. Underage smoking has always been considered when rating a film.

At the end of the article, Chris Buckley has this to say:

I can only hope this means that the MPAA will strip such films as ‘Casablanca,’ ‘To Have and Have Not’ and ‘Sunset Boulevard’ of their G-ratings and re-label them for what they were: insidious works of pro-smoking propaganda that led to millions of uncounted deaths. Bravo.

There’s been a very noticeable campaign for this here in New York, and I guess it finally succeeded.. No doubt we’ll next see a push to oust all non-organic foods from the big screen (except when eaten by villains), followed by the removal of all acts of aggression, emotional problems, and vaguely conservative politics. Eventually, then, all movies will simply be static shots of two people of mixed ethnicity doing aerobics while smiling and complimenting each other. I can’t wait.