More States Adopt Fire-Safe Cigarette Legislation
As of Jan. 1, 2009, new laws requiring stores to only sell fire-safe cigarettes took effect.
The number will jump from the current 18 states that already have fire-safe cigarette requirements, to 32 states by the end of 2009.
Such legislation to require vendors to sell fire-safe cigarettes, which are designed to go out if they are dropped or set aside, has been discussed since it was introduced in 1974.
New states added to the list as of Jan. 1 2009 are Delaware, Iowa, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas.
Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and South Carolina have laws that will take effect in 2010.
The decision was made to change strategy and promote state requirements, U.S. Fire Administrator Gregory Cade told the USA Today.
"Government fundamentally doesn’t like “¦ to pass laws restricting commerce," Cade said.
Lawmakers tried to push legislation as recently as 2006, when Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. introduced the idea, but it failed due to strong opposition from lobbying firms.
But smokers have begun complaining about the taste of new fire-safe cigarettes, said Julie Alexander, who manages a Tobacco Outlet Plus store in Des Moines, Iowa.
"Our customers say they are harder to smoke and the taste isn’t the same," Alexander said.
David Howard, spokesman for R.J. Reynolds, the USA’s second-largest tobacco company, said the company will start making all of its cigarettes fire-safe by the end of 2009.
About 800 Americans die each year in fires caused by careless smoking and the Coalition for Fire-Safe Cigarettes estimates that number will be reduced if at least half the states pass the law.
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