Question of the Month
September
2007
Which
Midwestern states have passed legislation requiring
"self-extinguishing" cigarettes?
According to the National
Fire Protection Association and the Coalition for Fire-Safe
Cigarettes, cigarettes are the leading cause of home fire fatalities
in the United States, with smoking-related fires resulting every year
in 700 to 900 deaths as well as millions of dollars in property damage
and loss. In 2003 alone, there were more than 25,000 smoking-material
fires, causing 760 deaths and more than 1,500 injuries.
In an effort to stem the
loss of life and the damage caused by careless handling of unattended
cigarettes, state policymakers have taken the lead in adopting
measures to mandate "self-extinguishing" cigarettes. The
so-called fire-safe cigarettes are manufactured with an extra band of
paper that extinguishes a lighted cigarette if it isn’t being
smoked.
The first state to adopt a
measure requiring the cigarettes was New York in 2004. To date,
California, Oregon and Vermont have followed suit and currently sell
only fire-safe cigarettes. Seventeen other states will join them,
passing laws that become effective in 2008 or 2009.
Three
of those states — Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota
— are in the Midwest.
Illinois was the first
Midwestern state to require cigarettes to be self-extinguishing; its
legislation will take effect on Jan. 1, 2008. Minnesota and Iowa
passed similar laws this year, with effective dates of Dec. 1, 2008,
and Jan. 1, 2009, respectively. In addition, lawmakers have introduced
such legislation in Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin.
According to proponents of
the cigarettes, states were targeted after attempts to have the U.S.
Congress pass legislation failed. Support for the cigarettes has been
spearheaded by the Coalition for Fire-Safe Cigarettes, with the
assistance of grass-roots efforts by groups such as firefighters and
local officials.
The New York law has
become the model being adopted by other states. A Harvard School of
Public Health study has confirmed that the fire-safe cigarettes are
more likely to extinguish themselves if left unattended and that in
New York, the price of cigarettes did not change, nor did tax revenue
from cigarettes decrease.
For more information on the cigarettes
and passed and pending legislation, visit the coalition’s Web site
at www.firesafecigarettes.org.
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