Walt Disney has said that it will ban cigarette smoking from its family-oriented films.
The company, which owns the Disney, Miramax and Touchstone film studios, has vowed to stamp out smoking in all Disney-branded movies.
It will also "discourage depictions" of cigarette smoking in films released by the Miramax and Touchstone studios.
Disney also intends to place anti-smoking promotional films on DVDs of any future film that does depict smoking and hopes to "work with theatre owners" to encourage the exhibition of an anti-smoking advert before any of its films that do show smoking.
"We discourage depictions of cigarette smoking in Disney, Touchstone and Miramax films," said Disney president and chief executive, Robert Iger, in a letter to Representative Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts.
"In particular, we expect that depictions of cigarette smoking in future Disney branded films will be non-existent."
Disney is the first major Hollywood studio to ban depictions of smoking.
Among the recent films from the company's three movie studios that have featured smoking are '102 Dalmatians', 'Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest', 'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' and 'Inspector Gadget'.
