Fire-Safe Cigarettes Ignite N.J. Debate

Monday, June 09 2008 @ 05:37 pm EDT

Contributed by: CBrining

From the Atlantic City Press Published: Monday, June 08, 2008

By ERIK ORTIZ Staff Writer, 609-272-7253

In March 2007, Ellen Mulvihill returned home to find her Barnegat Township house on fire. A house guest's cigarette left in the backyard ignited a propane tank, she said. The flames gutted her home and any sense of normalcy.

As a victim of careless smoking, Mulvihill was pleased to hear New Jersey's self-extinguish cigarette law went into effect this month after the state Legislature passed it a year ago.

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The specially-designed cigarettes - which all tobacco vendors must sell - are considered more fire-safe since they burn out faster when not being smoked.

"I think they're great if you can prevent this type of tragedy," said Mulvihill, referring to her situation that has left her and her two sons, ages 14 and 22, sharing an apartment and awaiting enough fundraising help to rebuild their home.

New Jersey is the latest of 11 states that have fire-safe cigarette legislation in effect, according to the Coalition for Fire-Safe Cigarettes, coordinated by the National Fire Protection Association in Massachusetts. All but six states have similar bills being discussed or have passed them into law.

While some cigarette companies have lobbied against such laws, others are embracing it.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, the second-largest tobacco company in the country and the maker of brands such as Camel and Kool, announced last fall it will only manufacture and distribute fire-safe compliant cigarettes beginning in late 2009, regardless of a state's law.

"Nearly two years ago, we began urging major tobacco companies to switch to this life-saving technology," James M. Shannon, the National Fire Protection Association's president, responded in a statement. "While it could have been done sooner, I applaud their action and urge every other tobacco company to do the same."

According to the association, fires caused by cigarettes kill 700 to 900 people per year, with one-quarter of the victims being someone who did not smoke the cigarette that caused the accident.

In New Jersey, smoking materials caused 204 house fires in 2006, contributing to about 14 percent of all civilian fire fatalities, according to the state Department of Community Affairs' Division of Fire Safety.

James Foley, chief fire marshal in Atlantic City, said the Fire Department has seen an increase in external structural fires as the result of the statewide ban forcing people to smoke outdoors of commercial buildings and restaurants.

Although department statistics were not immediately available Friday, cigarette-related fatalities remain uncommon, Foley said.

"When we see careless cigarette smoking, it's somehow related to alcohol or older people who take medicine and might fall asleep," he added.

The new law in New Jersey goes too far for Jesse O. Kurtz, of the Smokers Rights Association, an opponent of Atlantic City's smoking ban that begins in October on all casino gaming floors.

While he's not against fire-safe technology and manufacturers using it, the requirement that all cigarette sellers must now carry those types of cigarettes is alarming, Kurtz said.

"If cigarette companies want to do that on their own, more power to them," he said. "But I'm against the bureaucracy in Trenton imposing these ideas on the free market and free citizens."

Caught in the middle is David Gardner, owner of Starkman Distributors in Atlantic City. His warehouse ships cigarettes to mom-and-pops, liquor stores and casino gift shops.

All he carries now are the fire-safe brands. He said they look just like regular cigarettes except the boxes are labeled with "FSC" and "some people say the taste is slightly different" when they're relit.

Retailers are allowed to sell out their current cigarette stocks, he said, and transition over to the new cigarettes when they reorder. There are no increases in costs to him, the retailers or consumers, he said.

"If this saves lives," Gardener said, "then all the power to it."

To e-mail Erik Ortiz at The Press:EOrtiz@pressofac.com