By Richard Craver, Winston-Salem Journal, Saturday, August 25, 2007

A new law signed yesterday by Gov. Mike Easley gives tobacco manufacturers until January 2010 to make all their cigarettes in North Carolina self-extinguishing. 

Easley said that the law is aimed at reducing the number of smoking-related fires and home-fire deaths. "Fire-safe" cigarettes have extra bands of paper to stop the burning if it is not regularly puffed on, usually going out within one to three minutes. 

There were 2,916 cigarette-related fires in North Carolina between 2001 and 2006, according to the governors office. In March, a fatal fire in a Mocksville adult-care home was caused by a resident smoking in her room while breathing from an oxygen tank. 

"Cigarettes are the leading cause of deaths from fires in North Carolina," Easley said in a statement. "By making the change to self-extinguishing cigarettes, it is estimated that as many as 50 fire-related deaths in our state could be prevented each year." 

Three states - California, New York and Vermont - already require the self-extinguishing cigarettes. North Carolina becomes the 19th state to pass a law and await enactment.

"This is very much a public-safety issue, and not an anti-smoking issue," said Lorraine Carli, a spokeswoman for the Coalition for Fire-Safe Cigarettes.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and Philip Morris USA said they have not raised their price to wholesalers in the three states requiring the fire-safe paper.

"The North Carolina legislature has given us ample lead time to address supply issues and comply with the new law," said David Howard, a spokesman for Reynolds.

Even though at least 22 states will require the self-extinguishing paper in the next three years, both manufacturers said they prefer a federal performance standard - based on the New York law - before converting all of their cigarettes to the product.

Bill Phelps, a spokesman for Philip Morris, said that the company wants to avoid "a patchwork of inconsistent or conflicting state regulations."

Cigarette-makers can be fined up to $100,000 every 30 days for failure to comply with the North Carolina law, and retailers could be fined up to $25,000 every 30 days for "knowingly selling cigarettes that are not self-extinguishing."

"North Carolina is ahead of most states in protecting people and property from cigarette fires,” said Bill Godshall, the executive director of Smokefree Pennsylvania. “Reduced ignition-propensity cigarettes are the only proven reduced-risk cigarettes."

Dr. James Holmes IV, the director of the burn center at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, said that the manufacturers recognize that self-extinguishing cigarettes are likely to become the national standard. Holmes said that the burn center, a supporter of the legislation, has at least one burn patient a month related to a cigarette fire.

"I don’t think the fire-safe cigarettes will cause smokers to smoke more because they are safer," Holmes said.

"Its already been proven these fire-safe papers cigarettes don’t change taste, and that these laws are having a societal benefit in terms of lower medical and safety costs."

Richard Craver can be reached at 727-7376 or at rcraver@wsjournal.com