The tobacco industry happy to kill its customers?

Plans to force tobacco firms to make 'safer' cigarettes that are less likely to start fires are under threat thanks to intense lobbying from the industry. The Tobacco Manufacturers Association has mounted a campaign to undermine proposed European Union regulations that would make it compulsory for British firms to produce a form of cigarette which safety campaigners say would save lives.

According to Canadian scientists, 'reduced ignition propensity cigarettes' can cut cigarette-related fire deaths by 68 per cent a year. The cigarettes, which burn faster than ordinary ones if they are not inhaled, have been considered a success since they were introduced in the United States two years ago.

The European tobacco lobby believes the switch to the new cigarettes, which use paper rolled differently from normal ones, will prove expensive and is attempting to delay their introduction. At a meeting with government ministers on 5 October, the association delivered a briefing for ministers designed to refute the arguments made for the new kind of cigarette. The document has also been presented to EU officials who will meet to discuss the issue this week and have the power to make the proposals law. Anti-smoking groups are concerned that a number of member states will be influenced by the tobacco lobby and will reject the plans.

'These cigarettes are good news,' said Matt Wrack, the general secretary of the Fire Brigades Union. 'Cigarettes not put out properly cause one in 10 house fires and are responsible for one in three deaths from fire.’ A report by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister suggested that if the UK had conformed in 2003 to the highest standards of the safer cigarettes the number of smoking-related fires would have been reduced by nearly two thirds. This would have resulted in 2,544 fewer fires, 168 fewer fatalities and 886 fewer non-fatal casualties over the year.

I suppose one should not be surprised by the tobacco industry given that at least one firm considered putting etorphine (elephant juice) in cigarettes to make them more addictive. On the other hand perhaps they are doing a great public service to their customers by burning some of them to death before they can die of cancer…..


Tobacco Cigarettes