Building a 'fire-safe' cigarette
AT LEAST seven deaths in Massachusetts so far this year are believed to be the result of cigarette-ignited fires. In fact, cigarettes are the leading cause of residential fire deaths across the country, killing 700 to 900 Americans each year -- both smokers and nonsmokers.
Additionally, thousands of victims suffer devastating burn and lung injuries, and property losses total millions of dollars each year. While on their own these numbers are sad, they are made more painful knowing there is a proven way to prevent such tragedies.
Last month, the Massachusetts Senate passed legislation requiring that cigarettes sold in the state be ''fire-safe" -- a term for cigarettes with a reduced ignition propensity if left unattended on upholstered furniture or mattresses. The most common fire-safe technology used by cigarette manufacturers is to make the paper thicker in places to act as ''speed bumps" to slow down a burning cigarette. If a fire-safe cigarette is left unattended, the burning tobacco will reach an area where the paper is thicker and self-extinguish.
Tobacco companies, which have had this technology for nearly a half-century, have long made unfounded excuses -- everything from taste to expense -- as to why it could not be done. Time and again, they have been proven wrong.
Already, legislation requiring cigarettes to meet a consistent fire safety standard has been adopted in New York, Vermont, and California, and the governor in Illinois is about to sign the same bill into law. Initial research in New York State since the implementation of its statewide mandate shows a dramatic decline in the number of fatalities caused by cigarette-ignited fires. Research has also shown that these fire-safe cigarettes have not reduced cigarette sales or tax revenues, meaning they are acceptable to consumers. We are now seeing that fire-safe cigarettes can save lives, and there is no reason for tobacco companies to withhold this lifesaving technology from Massachusetts -- or any other state for that matter.
Mary Kearney of Boston knows all too well the need for such legislation. In 1990, Kearney lost five members of her immediate family and a friend to a six-alarm blaze -- one of the state's worst fires in recent memory -- started by a cigarette that caught fire in a couch. For more than a decade she and her surviving children have come to the State House advocating for fire-safe cigarette legislation to spare other families the pain they feel every day.
Opponents of the bill, mainly the tobacco industry and their spokespeople, are now saying that states should not act and should let the federal government pass a single standard. The reality is that Congress has refused to regulate the tobacco industry in any way. By adopting the New York standard, states are in fact creating a uniform standard. We can barely get a closely divided Congress to agree on the time of day.
As the Legislature begins its season of budget debate, it is often a challenge to work within our fiscal realities, yet do what is right. But here is a simple idea that makes sense. It will save lives and does not cost anything. In addition, the cigarette paper manufacturers employ 277 people in Western Massachusetts. It is one reason why Governor Romney's former secretary of administration and finance, Eric Kriss, testified in support of this legislation at the public hearing held by the Joint Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security. It is a jobs bill as well as public safety legislation.
Every day that passes without cigarette fire safety standards in place means we are placing our firefighters and fellow residents at greater, unnecessary risk. The longer we wait, the more lives will be lost to cigarette-ignited fires. And it bears remembering that such fires harm not only the actual smoker, but also the children in the apartment next door, or the senior citizen who lives upstairs.
The time has come to finally hold the tobacco industry to a higher standard that already exists. The Massachusetts Legislature should act now to protect the citizens of our state and prevent another family from experiencing the loss from which Mary Kearney and her family will never fully recover.
State Representative Rachel Kaprielian is a Democrat from Watertown. State Senator Stephen Brewer is a Democrat from Barre. 
