Fire-safe cigarettes
On Easter morning, yet another six-month-old child was killed in a fire in Surrey, started by what the press identified as a "careless smoker". Perhaps it's time to look at where the blame for this death really lies.
Making a cigarette fire-safe can be as simple as reducing the porosity of the cigarette paper or elongating the cigarette tube, causing it to burn cooler and extinguish itself when it's not being puffed on. The big tobacco multinationals have been test-marketing fire-safe cigarettes since at least the 70s.
So why are cigarettes still causing one out of every four fatal fires? Quite simply: cigarettes which extinguish themselves can be re-lit and re-used, reducing sales for Big Tobacco. It all comes down to profit vs. lives.
In New York, which has already seen at least 17 deaths this year from fires started by cigarettes, the state's legislators have decided they've finally had enough. In April, New York's State Assembly and Senate both unanimously approved legislation requiring Big Tobacco to sell only self-extinguishing cigarettes in New York by April 2002.
The tobacco industry, of course, opposed this. Brendan McCormick, a spokesliar for Philip Morris, said "We think this is an issue that is best dealt with at the federal level." Only problem is, Philip Morris has never supported any effort to mandate self-extinguishing cigarettes at the federal level. Mark Smith, a spokesman for BAT's Brown & Williamson branch, said that his company has not successfully developed what he called a "lower ignition propensity'' cigarette, an outright lie unless the word "successfully" means "we can make even higher profits on it."
Marc Ander
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