Kentucky Moves Towards 'Fire-Safe' Cigarettes

Source from:  tobaccoreporter.com China, Thursday, February 15, 2007 02/25/2007

Legislation that would require tobacco manufacturers to sell only lowered ignition propensity cigarettes in Kentucky has won unopposed approval from the state's House Licensing and Occupations Committee, according to a report by Bruce Schreiner for Associated Press. The legislation is backed by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The NFPA's Russ Sanders was quoted as saying that Kentucky had the US' ninth worst fire-death record nationally as well as the highest percentage of smoking adults. "It's pretty easy to connect the dots," Sanders told the committee. "If this legislation passes, we will save lives in Kentucky." There seemed to be no explanation, however, of how in fact the dots should be joined between Kentucky's having the highest proportion of adult smokers within its population, but only the ninth worst fire-death record. It would seem that other, critical factors are at work in this equation. Enditem