‘Stranger Things’ and ‘The Walking Dead’ Top List of TV Series Showing the Most Smoking

When it comes to depictions of smoking on screen, some fan-favorite shows are among the worst offenders. According to a new study Netflix‘s Stranger Things and AMC‘s The Walking Dead top the list for the most instances of smoking on television.

In the study entitled “While You Were Streaming” the anti-smoking group Truth Initiative (via Variety) examined 14 of the most popular shows for Americans aged 15-24, both on streaming services like Netflix and on cable or broadcast television and found that 79 percent of them prominently displayed smoking. Specifically, the first season of Netflix’s Stranger Things topped the list with 182 separate “tobacco incidents” while AMC’s The Walking Dead came in a far second with 94. That show was followed by four more Netflix series making Netflix’s original series home to a combined total of 319 incidents — over twice the number on broadcast and cable television.

Truth Initiative says that these numbers are concerning because of the popularity of streaming programming with a younger demographic. Robin Koval, CEO and president of Truth Initiative explained that this could lead to fresh glamorization of smoking.

“There has been a revolution in television that now encompasses a complex universe including Hulu, Netflix and an emerging world of on-demand platforms,” Koval said in a statement. “And while everybody was watching, but no one was paying attention, we’ve experienced a pervasive re-emergence of smoking imagery that is glamorizing and renormalizing a deadly habit to millions of impressionable young people. It has to stop.”

Even with these new numbers showing a spike in smoking in streaming programs, smoking rates among high school students as declined over time. A 2017 study sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that the smoking rate among high school students dropped from 20 percent in 2000 to 5.4 percent in 2017. Smoking in movies has also declined with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) added smoking as a factor in their rating system over a decade ago and it’s something similar that Truth Initiative hopes to see when it comes to television as well. One of the remedies the organization is asking for in a call to action associated with the study is that TV parental guideline ratings take into account smoking when rating a show and that those smoking restrictions extend to online streaming platforms as well.