Tobacco News and Interesting Information

AUGUSTA -- Smokers in Maine are finding their habit increasingly under the Maine Legislature's microscope, and on Monday lawmakers reviewed a bill that would restrict in-state cigarette sales to brands that meet "fire-safe" standards.

Under a bill sponsored by Rep. Peter Rines, D-Wiscasset, all cigarettes sold in Maine would be manufactured using a type of cigarette paper that causes the cigarette to extinguish itself if the smoker is not inhaling from it.

Already in use in several other states, so-called "fire-safe" cigarettes incorporate what proponents described Monday as incendiary "speed bumps" that, absent a smoker's inhaling action, blocks the cigarette from burning beyond the "speed bump."

The paper the "speed bump" is constucted from is not chemically treated; it simply burns at a hotter temperature that is reached only when a person is actually drawing on the cigarette.

A similar bill was killed by lawmakers six years ago and went nowhere again in 2005, when it was introduced to the Legislature's Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee.

Driving the adoption of the measure this time is a dramatic decrease in residential fire-related deaths that fire officials say accompanied its adoption in New York in 2004.

Rines and Robert Duval, a Quincy, Mass., senior fire investigator and New England regional manager for the National Fire Protection Association, said residential fire deaths had dropped by a third in New York state during the first year the "fire-safe" cigarette law was in place.

Maine State Fire Marshal John Dean spoke in favor of the bill and provided statistical data indicating that, between 1993 and 2005, smoking-related fires killed more people in Maine than any other identifiable fire-related cause.

Dean said fires erupt when people fall asleep and drop their cigarettes while smoking in bed, sitting on upholstered chairs or couches or in cars. The cigarettes smolder and then ignite other materials after the smoker has been asleep for hours.

"They're probably already dead before they'd ever seen a flaming fire," Dean said. "And 'fire-safe' is kind of a misnomer and a bad choice. It's actually 'reduced ignition propensity' that, while a better term, hasn't really caught on - even though I like the acronym, R.I.P."

Gena Canning, director of purchasing for Pine State Trading Co. in Augusta, a major distributor of cigarettes, beverages and other products, said "fire-safe" cigarettes are the next big development in the industry.

Although she opposed the bill two years ago, she now supports it in the interest of a uniform standard for her company that does business in six states.

"Two years ago, I asked you not to do it," Canning said. "Now, I'm begging you to please do it," she said, adding that having to arrange duplicate inventories of "fire safe" and regular cigarettes was costing the company money. "We're just doubling our work."

Ed Pineau, lobbyist for the Phillip Morris USA, said the major tobacco company also supports the bill for the same reasons: It's simply more cost effective to ship one variety of product to New England as opposed to two.

No one spoke against the bill, which will be reviewed later during a future work session.

Some lawmakers on the panel questioned whether or not the bill would have an impact on cigarette prices, while Rep. Pat Blanchette, D-Bangor, asked why Duval and other proponents had not sought a national solution to the problem.

"Why aren't you focusing on the manufacturers so it doesn't have to be a state mandate?" she asked. "Why don't you go to the source of the problem. It's a slow boat to China to go state by state -- if, in fact, there's no difference in the quality of the product."

Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham and co-chairman of the Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, said he was bothered by the fact smokers would have to essentially smoke their cigarettes faster or relight them more frequently in order to not have their cigarette go out.

"Either way, it doesn't sound good," he said.

The bill comes as smokers face unprecedented legislative pressure.

Smokers have watched numerous public smoking areas be put out of reach for their activity.

In Bangor, the city recently outlawed smoking by adults in motor vehicles carrying youths.

Meanwhile, successive Legislatures have dramatically raised state cigarette taxes and Gov. John E. Baldacci has included another $1-per-pack tax increase in his state budget.