On-Screen Smoking Getting More Common On Netflix

U.S. anti-smoking group The Truth Initiative has criticized the pervasive rise of smoking on Netflix. The nonprofit organization has has released a report which found 866 incidents of smoking in 2016-2017 on the streaming service, a dramatic increase on the 299 tobacco depictions in 2015-2016. That was much higher than cable/broadcast which only saw 139 depictions in 2015-16 and 343 in 2016-17.

The Truth Initiative states that while Netflix is the focus of the analysis because it is the platform for young people's favourite streaming shows, it should also be noted that the proliferation of tobacco imagery is not limited to that streaming network. Other examples of characters smoking multiple times include "The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel" on Amazon and Hulu's "Gap Year". On Netflix, "Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt" only had nine tobacco depictions in 2015-16 and that soared to 292 in 2016-17. Science fiction-horror hit "Stranger Things" is also high on tobacco depictions with 182 in 2015-16 and 262 in 2016-17. In fact, 100 percent of all "Stranger Things" episodes had a tobacco depiction across each of those two seasons.