Safer cigs

PICTURE THIS: You make it home safely from the bar Saturday night -- your fears of encountering a drunk driver on the road or acquiring a ticket for public intoxication are erased from your mind -- and you crawl into bed to relax with a cigarette. Little do you know, this is the time you should be most afraid. If sleep consumes you before you properly extinguish the burning cigarette in your hand, you could become one of the more than 800 smoking-related fire casualties that occur each year in the United States.\nBut according to a recent study at the Harvard School of Public Health, the technology to make safer cigarettes exists, and there is no valid reason why these cigarettes should not be sold nationwide to reduce smoking-related fires, which cause more deaths annually than any other type of fire. \n"For each one of those families that experience a smoking-related fire death, that fire death is just an enormous tragedy," said Gregory Connolly, an instructor in Harvard's public health division and the lead author of the study. "Nationally, it's more than 800 fire deaths, and that's a lot of funerals to go to."\nResearchers compared a sample of cigarettes from Massachusetts and California to those of the same brand sold in New York, where a new safety standard requires cigarette manufacturers to reduce the ignition propensity of cigarettes. They found that New York cigarettes were less likely to burn to the end when left unattended. \nWhile not perfectly self-extinguishing, only 10 percent of cigarettes sold in New York had a full burn, compared to 99.8 percent of the Massachusetts and California cigarettes tested.\nTodd Easton, a fire prevention officer at the Bloomington Fire Department, said he thinks these cigarettes have the potential to reduce smoking-related fire deaths. He said he would support similar safety standards if they were introduced in Indiana. \n"I see these cigarettes as a positive thing," he said. "Most of the cigarette fires we find happen when people who are impaired fall asleep with a lighted cigarette. These cigarettes wouldn't burn all the way to the end."\nSo far, more than a dozen states -- not including Indiana -- have introduced legislation requiring safety standards for cigarettes. However, only New York has been successful in passing it. Similar federal legislation was introduced in Congress in 2004 and since has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.\nConnolly said this study will provide valuable information for state legislatures considering passing similar laws. State legislatures, he said, would be more likely to approve a safe-standard law than Congress. \n"But if a sufficient number of states do pass this legislation, there'd be pressure on the tobacco industry to make a uniform bill," he said. \nResearchers also found the introduction of New York's reduced-ignition propensity cigarettes, or RIP, appeared to have no effect on the sales of cigarettes in New York, indicating consumer acceptance. \nIgnition propensity is reduced in cigarettes through the addition of ultra-thin paper bands, which act as "speed bumps" by restricting the amount of oxygen delivered to the burning ember. This restriction causes the cigarette to extinguish if it is not being smoked, the study states. \nTrash, mattresses and bedding and upholstered furniture are the items most commonly ignited by smoking materials, according to a report by the National Fire Protection Association. One reason for this is that freely burning cigarettes burn at temperatures of 930 degrees Fahrenheit to 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit. However, objects burning at as low as 300 degrees Fahrenheit can ignite upholstery. Other factors, such as the use of drugs and alcohol, also often contribute to these fires, he said.\nThe most recent death at IU from a cigarette-related fire occurred in 2002. IU graduate student Darrell Burton died after inhaling poisonous amounts of carbon monoxide from an apartment fire caused by an unattended cigarette that ignited a living room couch.\nFortunately, Easton said smoking-related fire deaths are declining in Bloomington and have been ever since Monroe County introduced its new smoking policy, which prohibits smoking in restaurants and bars. \n"I think people are more aware, and they're not smoking as much in different places," Easton said. \nTwo smoking-related fires have been reported in Bloomington so far during 2005, and 10 total were reported in Bloomington in 2004. But Easton said the cause of these fires is often hard to prove because the cigarette that caused the fire can be consumed by the fire itself.\nEach year, the Bloomington Fire Department teams with the IU Fire and Safety Department to conduct a fire safety campaign on the IU campus. One of the best ways to reduce the chance of causing a fire by a lighted cigarette is to discard it in a proper container, Easton said. \n"Have some type of metal tin and dump a half-glass or a glass of water in with the cigarette," he said. "It's common sense. That's all there is."\nConnolly said although the study provides good research, a larger study of more cigarette brands and their prices in more communities needs to be conducted to confirm the success and acceptability of reduced ignition propensity cigarettes.\nEaston said he could not believe he had not heard of these cigarettes yet through the U.S. Fire Administration. \n"Anything that's going to help, I'm all for it," he said. \nThe study was funded by the American Legacy Foundation, a public health foundation aimed at reducing tobacco use among young people. \n-- Contact Staff Writer Hannah Schroder at hschrode@indiana.edu.