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TALLAHASSEE — Legislation that would mandate safer-burning cigarettes designed to reduce home fires will soon land on Gov. Charlie Crist’s desk.

On Monday, the Senate unanimously approved new cigarette standards for tobacco companies, following the House’s lead Friday.

Nearly two dozen other states and Canada have adopted similar standards, which by 2010 would require the so-called fire-safe cigarettes.

They contain “speed bumps” - two or three rings of less porous paper - that cause the cigarettes to extinguish themselves if they are left unattended.

“The fact of the matter is it (smoking) is a leading cause of house fires in the United States, and it’s a preventable tragedy,” said Sen. Lee Constantine, R-Altamonte Springs, who sponsored the bill. “Now, it’s not going to stop all cigarette fires, but it will stop a significant number. I would say 75 percent.”

All tobacco wholesalers and retailers must sell only those cigarettes or risk monthly fines that could total no more than $100,000 and $250,000, respectively.

The tobacco industry, which supported the legislation (HB 1167), insists the costs of the special wrapping paper or bands to reduce cigarette ignition is negligible.

But tobacco representatives would not detail to what extent the new cigarettes along with state inspection and certification costs would cost Florida smokers.

“If you look historically at the states that have enacted this legislation, the list price for cigarettes we have offered has not changed as a result of these laws being enacted,” said Bill Phelps, a spokesman for Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris USA.

Constantine said the savings of safer burning cigarettes would outweigh any increase in a pack of cigarettes.

Florida Fire Marshal Les Hallman said smoking-related fires in the state in 2006 and 2007 caused more than $6.3 million in property losses.

Many times, home fires result when smokers fall asleep with or don’t properly extinguish a lit cigarette.

The human toll in that period was nine deaths and 64 injuries, including seven firefighters, Hallman added.

One pro-smokers group says self-extinguishing cigarettes’ effectiveness can’t be measured.

“You can’t say the fire-safe cigarette is the reason for a reduction in fires,” Maryetta Ables, a representative with FORCES Inc., an advocacy group against smoking restrictions.

“There’s no difference in the number of smoking-related deaths or fires” before or after the cigarette ignition standards.

More people are killed in fires started by unattended cigarettes in the United States than any other kind of fire. Those numbers, however, may drop thanks to a new kind of cigarette.

They are called “fire-safe” cigarettes. Legislators are expected to pass a law that would prohibit the sale of any other kind of cigarette in Hawaii.

The latest numbers from the National Fire Protection Association show cigarettes started more than 82,400 fires in the U.S. in 2005. Those fires killed 800 people and injured more than 1,660 people.

The most common fuel for those fires … mattresses. People fall asleep in bed while smoking and some mattresses burn very quickly.

So a new generation of cigarettes has been developed.

They are called “fire-safe” cigarettes, or LIPs which stands for low ignition propensity.

“It’s a cigarette that when you don’t smoke it, you’re talking … you set it down, it’ll go out. It won’t keep burning like traditional cigarettes do,” said Christopher Maxwell, who owns a store called Tobaccos of Hawaii on Atkinson Street.

LIP cigarettes are made with bands of thicker paper. Those bands act like speed bumps to slow the burn making them less likely to start fires.

If legislators pass the proposed “fire-safe” cigarette bill as expected, LIP cigarettes will be the only kind of cigarette you will be able to buy in Hawaii beginning Oct. 1, 2009.

Maxwell already sells lots of the “fire-safe” smokes.

“No one’s given me any negative feedback. There’s obviously no flavor difference. Most people don’t even know it’s going on. Virtually the entire cigarette industry is going to LIP cigarettes,” Maxwell told KGMB9.

A spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department said LIP cigarettes are a step in the right direction, but smokers still need to adhere to safety rules. Never smoke in bed. Smoke outside instead of indoors. And keep matches and lighters out of sight and reach of children.

Guntur: Tobacco prices are continuing to rule high in the Andhra Pradesh auctions. For the first time, Virginia tobacco fetched a record Rs 110.40 a kg on Thursday on the Koyyalagudem auction floor in West Godavari district. The district produces the best cigarettes in the State.
Average price
So far, 94.5 million kgs of cigarettes has been sold on the auction floors in the State at an average price of Rs 77.25 a kg as against last year’s average price of Rs 47.50 a kg by this time. Still, roughly 60 million kgs of tobacco remains to be sold in the State. According to rough estimates, the farmers have got an incremental income of Rs 285 crore more this year than the same time last year.
Admitting that the farmers are getting very good prices this season, Dr Y. Sivaji, President of the Andhra Pradesh Virginia Tobacco Growers’ Association, said that certain factors in the international market triggered the price rise on the auction floor. “The drastic slump in production in Zimbabwe from a level of 250 million kgs to 60 milion kgs, due to racial unrest in that country, is one of the major factors for the price rise. There has been production slump in Brazil by 70 million kgs or so and besides that China is no longer able to dump in the international market at lesser prices, as it has joined the WTO. There are no carryover stocks in India or anywhere else in the world,” he said. Plea to growers
Dr Sivaji, however, cautioned the farmers in the State to be wary of the “designs of the trade to effect a price correction in the State.
The trade is attempting to depress prices by forming into syndicates and imposing a ceiling price. Such attempts should be foiled by farmers and they should get an average price of $2 a kg on the floors. They should not part with the crop, if they do not realise the price”.
On the floors in the southern lights soils and southern black soils, he alleged, “the trade is up to its old tricks.” He also cautioned farmers that they should not go in for surplus production, encouraged by the high prices. The reduction of punitive cess for the current year’s surplus from Rs 2 a kg plus 15 per cent of the value to Rs 1 a kg plus 5 per cent of the value was not a correct move, he said.

The province is pushing ahead with its law to have all cigarettes in stores hidden from view by May 31st.
About half of the province’s ten thousand convenience stores say they can’t meet the deadline…and it will cost each of them over two thousand dollars to remove the wall of cigarettes behind the counter Conservative leader John Tory says the liberals are being insensitive to the plight of small business owners. But Premier McGuinty says they’ve have had years to get ready.
The Ontario convenience stores association says the new rules are a double whammy for owners who are already losing one-quarter of their tobacco sales to cigarettes smuggling.

Some state officials and business owners say the governor must move to start collecting sales tax from Indian stores as the price of a pack of cigarettes rises above $6 in June. On June 3, the state’s tax on cigarettes will increase from $1.50 to $2.75.
 A regular pack already costs close to $5, and now that price will hover around $6 at non-Indian owned stores. Among the impacts:
cluded, hurting sales at area convenience stores, the president of the New York Association of Convenience Stores said.
 – Smokers might be encouraged to quit because of the additional cost, the American Cancer Society said. — Gov. David Paterson is reviewing the issue of collecting sales tax from Native Americans to non-Indians. The state’s 2008-09 budget included $150 million in revenue for the collection of cigarette taxes from Indian-owned businesses. “
We included it in our financial plan, and we will continue to work toward collecting those taxes,” said Matt Anderson of the governor’s budget office.