The RIP Coalition is pleased to announce that it has achieved its goal to make reduced ignition propensity or “fire safer” cigarettes a legal requirement in the UK and European Union. From 17 November 2011 all cigarettes sold throughout the EU must conform to the new standard.

Members of the RIP Coalition have been campaigning for the new standard since 2007 to reduce the number of avoidable deaths and injuries resulting from fires started by cigarettes.

Cigarettes are the biggest cause of domestic fire deaths in the UK causing over 100 fatalities each year. In 2008, the most recent year for which statistics are available, smokers materials caused 2,814 fires and 101 deaths.

How do RIP cigarettes work?

A simple change in the design of cigarettes (two narrow bands of slightly thicker paper) greatly reduces the likelihood of unattended cigarettes continuing to burn, dramatically cutting the risk of fire. Tobacco companies could have introduced the change voluntarily but they refused. They even campaigned against laws that would bring in these “fire safer” cigarettes.

However, thanks to persistent lobbying by health and fire safety organisations, all cigarettes now sold in the EU are required to comply with the new fire safety standard.

In 2010, Finland became the first EU country to require fire safer cigarettes and the number of smoking related fire deaths fell by 40% in one year.

Click here to see the London Fire Brigade s press release

RIP Implementation update by Sir Ken Knight

Sir Ken Knight, Chief Fire and Rescue Advisor to the UK Government, has written to Deborah Arnott and the RIP coalition to provide an update on the RIP implementation later this year.

Download a pdf of the letter by clicking here.

RIP cigarettes for Europe before the end of 2011

The RIP Coalition understands that “fire safer cigarettes” should be in UK shops within the year. Negotiations at the European Union have been progressing well since the CEN, Europe s standard making body, published the standard and test method on 17th November 2010. Once the standard is referenced in the Official Journal of the European Union, which is usually 12 months after it is published, companies will be required to meet it. Therefore we expect the standard to be in force on or around 17th November, 2011.

European Committee for Standardization

RIP Law to cover entire US population

Eleven more US states now require all cigarettes sold to conform to the Reduced Ignition Propensity (RIP) standard, bringing the total to 43 states. Laws came into force on 1 January 2010 in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

Mississippi, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio and Missouri will all implement legislation during 2010, followed by South Dakota in January 2011 and Wyoming in July 2011. Wyoming became the 50 and last state to pass legislation to protect smokers and their families from the old style cigarettes, on 19 March 2010.

Cigarettes had been the number one cause of preventable fire deaths across the US until the State of New York became the first to implement RIP legislation in 2004 against fierce tobacco industry resistance. Canada was the first country to introduce RIP Cigarettes nationwide, while legislation in Australia came into force on 23 March 2010.

Tobacco manufacturers don’t sell firesafer cigarettes in the UK where cigarettes continue to be the largest cause of domestic fire deaths causing up to 3,000 fires per year. The European Union is currently developing a standard to be introduced across Europe, however Finland has introduced its own regulations from 1 April 2010.

Eu law on e-cigarettes has been made on the back of a fag packet : european conservatives and reformists group

Eu parliament bans menthol, targets e-cigarettes – the malta independent

ECR MEP Martin Callanan has hit out after the European Parliament voted to heavily over regulate many electronic cigarettes, in a move that he warns is likely to send e cigs users back to more harmful tobacco.

MEPs today held their final vote on the Tobacco Products Directive, which sets out a number of measures to discourage younger people from taking up smoking, such as larger pack warnings and a ban on flavourings. However, MEPs have also voted to introduce 14 pages of new red tape on e cigs (which deliver nicotine using vapour to avoid many of the harmful side effects of smoking such as tar, smoke and carbon monoxide). The new rules will ban refillable e cigs (which comprise a large component of the e cigs market), if only three EU countries ban them. It would also restrict all but the weaker e cigarettes (20 mg/ml nicotine), which would risk cigarette users going back to cigarettes in order to achieve the same nicotine hit .

Mr Callanan has fought a long campaign for e cigarettes to be regulated in a manner proportionate to the evidence that exists on them. He has received thousands of emails and letters from users who argue that the products have enabled them to move off of tobacco.

Last October, when the matter first came to a vote in the parliament, Conservative MEPs fought off efforts to force e cigs to undergo a medicinal authorisation procedure that would have placed many small manufacturers under threat. However, despite the vote of the parliament in favour of e cigs, the Commission and a few MEPs took it upon themselves to add a whole new article to the directive during the late night closed doors negotiations between the parliament and national governments seeking the agreement necessary to pass the proposals into law.

Speaking after today’s vote, which is expected to become law by 2016, Mr Callanan said

“E cigs are not healthy, but they are surely far better for you than smoking tobacco. We have fought for sensible regulation on e cigs that recognises the role they have played in taking many thousands of people off of smoking.

“The parliament voted for e cigs to be lightly regulated until we know what regulation might be required. Yet sneaky MEPs and commission officials sneaked a whole raft of red tape into back room negotiations without discussing them with e cigs users or other MEPs. We have drafted huge parts of this law on the back of a fag packet with decisions about smoke filled rooms ironically being made in smoke filled rooms in Brussels.

“The majority of the Tobacco Products Directive is on the zealous end of the scale but we could have accepted it. However, what we could not accept is the draconian restrictions on e cigs that were adopted. I believe we have completely failed to deliver the aim of discouraging smoking. By making it harder for smokers to get hold of e cigs of the strength they require, we just increase the chance of them resuming smoking tobacco.”