From: SMOKEFREE@compuserve.com
Date: Wed, 08/06/08
EU to Require Fire-Safe, Self-Extinguishing Cigarettes by 2011
By James G. Neuger
Bloomberg
Aug. 5, 2008
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=afKP9Vufc3GM
All cigarettes sold in Europe by 2011 will be required to be ``fire-safe''
brands that automatically go out if not puffed on for a minute, the
European Commission said.
European standard-setters are working on rules to mandate
self-extinguishing cigarettes to prevent accidental fires, following as
many as 37 U.S. states and Canada, commission spokesman Ton van Lierop
said.
Data from 16 European countries show that careless use of cigarettes such
as smoking in bed caused 11,000 fires annually between 2005 and 2007,
killing 520 people and injuring 1,600.
``We think that by 2011 at the latest, these cigarettes will be on the
market,'' Van Lierop told reporters today in Brussels. He challenged
contentions by tobacco companies that fireproofing would drive up cigarette
prices.
The standard method of fireproofing is to wrap a cigarette in additional
layers of thickened paper to slow the burning process, leading the
cigarette to go out on its own if not smoked for about 60 seconds, the
commission said.
Cigarette makers chafe at the added regulation. Alison Cooper, a director
of Imperial Tobacco Group Plc, told analysts in March that the term
``fire-safe'' is ``misleading'' and asked whether the idea would yield ``a
real benefit.''
The European Committee for Standardization has begun work on the technical
specifications for the safer cigarettes, after the European Union's 27
governments gave the go-ahead in November, Van Lierop said.
Discarded cigarettes are also a leading cause of forest fires, the
commission said.
To contact the reporter on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at
jneuger@bloomberg.net
- - -
European Union Pushes for Self-Extinguishing Cigarettes
DW-WORLD.DE
05.08.2008
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3540489,00.html
Smoking bans aren't the only thing on the EU's cigarette agenda. The bloc
wants to see the tobacco industry develop products that go out if they're
not being smoked -- it's not at all a new idea.
Brussels says a new generation of cigarettes could dramatically reduce the
number of deaths by fires.
"By introducing self-extinguishing cigarettes, at least 2,000 lives could
be saved in the EU each year," the bloc's Commissioner for Consumer Affairs
told German newspaper Die Welt.
The German Fire Departments' Association was quick to greet the
initiatives, saying some 200 of the 600 people who die by fire in Germany
each year are killed by flames originally caused by smoldering butts.
"If the self-extinguishing cigarette can contribute to reducing this
number, its introduction has to be seen positively," association
spokeswoman Silvia Darmstaedter told DW-WORLD.DE.
A spokesman for the EU Standardization Commission also told reporters he
thought that "fire-safe" cigs could be made mandatory by the year 2011.
Ironic name, old idea
Self-extinguishing cigarettes draw on a technology that developers,
presumably with a sense of humor, call reduced ignition propensity -- or
RIP. Bands of cellulose or alginate are put into the cigarette paper so
that the burning tobacco goes out if not puffed on.
The concept has been kicking around for quite some time. Patents for
self-extinguishing cigarettes were granted in the 1930s.
American cigarette makers Philip Morris and RJ Reynolds developed
"fire-safe" models in the 1980s but did not, in general, market them.
"What is very important is that consumers should understand that those
changes do not make fire-safe or even fire-safer cigarettes," Elfriede
Buben, External Communications Manager for Philip Morris Germany, told
DW-Radio. "Anything that burns, if handled carelessly, can cause a fire."
Several American states, including New York, Massachusetts and California
limit the sale of cigarettes to RIP models. Now the EU could follow their
lead.
Advantage for smokers
It is questionable whether technology and legislation are needed to solve
the problem. As smokers know, cigars, pipe tobacco and hand-rolled
cigarettes tend to go out on their own.
That's because regular cigarettes contain burning agents to keep them lit..
"The elimination of burning agents in cigarette paper would be a simple and
effective means of dramatically reducing the ignition propensity of
cigarettes," wrote Simon Chapman, a professor of public health at the
University Sydney, in a 2004 Australian medical journal.
But if self-extinguishing cigarettes do become the mandatory EU norm,
smokers may benefit financially.
After all a cigarette that burns down to the filter has to be replaced --
whereas one that goes out on its own can always be relit.
DW staff (jc)
.
| 
