The state Health Department spends a lot of money on programs that inform people about the dangers of cigarette smoking, and even supplies smokers with free nicotine patches and other products designed to help them quit.

And while we applaud these efforts, we believe the department's latest campaign - trying to get R ratings for movies that show people smoking - is a waste of taxpayers' money.

The Health Department is spending $800,000 lobbying the movie industry to consider smoking, along with nudity and violence, when deciding which movies should be rated R, restricted for unaccompanied minors.

State health officials point to studies that seem to show that children will more often take up smoking after being exposed to characters on the big screen who smoke.

The state shouldn't waste money fighting Hollywood on this issue.

The state puts a lot of time and resources into safe driving education and police enforcement; should it lobby the movie industry to stop showing people driving too fast or failing to buckle up?

A scene in the wildly popular “Hannah Montana” movie shows the 15-year-old star riding in a car without a seat belt.

We all know how dangerous that can be, but nobody suggested the movie be given an R rating for glamorizing dangerous behavior.

To be sure, children and teenagers are influenced by the stars they admire, but trying to get movie makers to agree to a blanket policy of self-regulation is a losing battle.

In the end, it's up to parents to decide which movies their children can see.

And it's the parents who need to teach children to behave responsibly when they're not being supervised by adults, whether the issue be smoking or riding in a car without a seat belt.