Are fire safer cigarettes more harmful to smokers than non fire safer cigarettes?
Some cigarette manufacturers claim that RIP cigarettes are even more poisonous than their regular products. They use this excuse as part of their campaign to oppose change even though the tobacco industries own tests suggest it is untrue.
There is some evidence that levels of some toxins are slightly higher arising with some methods used to meet the RIP standard.
On the other handthere is no evidence that small increases in one or more toxins affect the already highly toxic nature of cigarette smoke.
Therefore the answer is simple, the tobacco industry already knows how to produce RIP cigarettes with no significant increase in toxins and it makes sense to make this a condition when campaigning for the new regulations.
The Evidence:
1. PM [Philip Morris] created two prototypes [of RIP cigarettes] that had no effect on "tar" delivery levels. The testing done on the Paper Select also establishes: "there was no meaningful change found in the overall smoke chemistry or biological activity of cigarettes made with this special paper when compared to the same cigarettes made with conventional cigarette paper."
RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company also conducted significant toxicity testing. Internal Ames testing, a quick, reliable screen for potentially cancer causing chemicals in humans, in 1994 showed: "results were not higher for the prototype cigarettes than their respective controls either on a revertant-per-mg-tar basis or a revertant-per-cigarette basis." While the toxicity levels of low ignition propensity cigarettes is of major concern, the industry devised means to make their fire safe prototypes no more toxic than their regular cigarettes.[1]
2. This communication reports the results of comparative analyses of smoke from two low-propensity experimental cigarettes, A and B, which differed only in the porosity and treatment of the paper, and of the smoke from a reference cigarette C and from two leading US commercial cigarettes D and E. Model cigarette A delivered higher smoke yields of total particulate matter (TPM), nicotine, CO and benzo[a]pyrene than the other four cigarettes, but had lower smoke yields of the carcinogenic, volatile, and tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines than cigarettes C, D and E. The TPM of cigarette A was less active as a frameshift mutagen in tests with Salmonella strain TA98 than was the TPM of cigarettes C, D and E. TPM of cigarette A was also less active as a frameshift mutagen in tester strain TA1538 than was the TPM of reference cigarette C. However, when the mutagenic potencies of the particulate matters were compared on a cigarette-to-cigarette basis, there were no significant differences between the TPM of the individual cigarettes. [2]
3. The tobacco industry has for decades actively opposed passage of state and federal requirements for cigarette fire safety standards, arguing that the cigarettes would be technically not feasible to develop, would increase product toxicity, and would prove unacceptable to consumers.(6-13) The tobacco industry has also denied the efficacy of the proposed standards to reduce fires and overall mortality and costs associated with cigarette induced fires.(7) More recently, Philip Morris has gone on record in support of a national RIP law but not individual state laws... The present study found some differences in the yields of specific smoke constituents in addition to tar and CO. The differences found were generally of small magnitude. There is no evidence that small increases in one or more toxins affect the already highly toxic nature of cigarette smoke...
Under the Fire-Safe Cigarette Act of 1990, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), using a larger sample of six commercial cigarette brand types, compared the Tobacco Institute Testing Laboratory values of the tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide yields of reduced ignition propensity with the values for the yields from the 14 best selling commercial cigarette brand types. No significant differences in levels of toxic compounds were found between the two sets of cigarettes.(14) Internal industry testing of banded cigarettes also has shown them to be substantially the same as regular cigarettes on a number of important measures of toxicology.[3]
4. The industry has argued that RIP cigarettes would be technically unfeasible to develop, would increase product toxicity, and would prove unacceptable to consumers... Based on the New York experience, prior industry objections to producing RIP cigarettes are unfounded. Other states and nations should adopt similar standards. [4]
5. Increased toxicity: Manufacturers’ documents show they know how to make RIP cigarettes without increasing tar Increased toxicity. Manufacturers’ documents show they know how to make RIP cigarettes without increasing tar yields in the smoke. Disease risks to smokers from occasionally re-lit cigarettes, whether hand rolled or RIP, would be similar, and the fire risk to others living in the same building would be reduced. In any case, governments can separately regulate to enforce upper limits to cigarette smoke toxicity across all brands. [5]
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[1] Tobacco Control 2002;11:346–353
[2] Food Chem Toxicol. 1994 Oct;32(10):917-22
[3] "Fire Safer" CigarettesHarvardSchool of Public Health / American Legacy Foundation January, 2005
[4] Tobacco Control 2005;14:321–327. doi: 10.1136/tc.2005.011759
[5] Tobacco Control 2003;12:406–410
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