Smokers are fuming about the taste of fire-safe

Bill Peterson has been smoking Marlboro Reds for ten years, and during those years he truly enjoyed his smokes. But now, he has trouble getting used to the flavor of his favorite Marlboros. He says that the cigarettes now have a metal taste and make his tongue and throat itch.

“It has a different taste, and I don’t like that taste,” the 31-year-old accountant complained. “It tastes like a cheaper brand of poor quality.” A tobacco store manager who is now accustomed to such complaints told Peterson what was the problem.

So, Peterson found out that he was puffing on fire-safe cigarettes. Spreading across the country with a booming speed, the FSC are made to self-extinguish when are left burning and not used.

The principal aim is to prevent the ignitions that cause thousands of deadly residential fires annually because smokers forget to extinguish cigarettes or drop them on furniture or bedding.

Fire prevention groups struggled with tobacco companies for many years to demand the manufacture of fire-safe cigarettes in place of conventional ones, before the tobacco industry finally gave up.

So, with almost no bustle, all American states, excluding Wyoming, approved legislations demanding tobacco shops to sell fire-safe cigarettes only.

However, at the same time with the spread of FSC, many smokers started complaining about the bad taste of the new cigarettes. They have even launched an online site, collecting signatures to abolish fire-safe cigarette. Approximately 7.500 people have signed this petition.

Thousands smokers from different states wrote to tobacco companies that the new cigarettes cause cough, nausea, headaches, sore throat, and other adverse effects.

According to a research by Harvard Public Health Department, accomplished in 2005, fire-safe cigarettes contain up to 11 percent more carbon dioxide than traditional cigarettes. The FSC as well contained an increased amount of several additives that was not significant.

However, Philip Morris spokesman claimed that they had not put any chemicals in the fire-safe cigarettes.

The fire-safe cigarettes differ from conventional cigarettes only in the design of paper used to wrap tobacco. Fire-safe cigarettes contain two or three layers of less porous paper which contributes to self-extinguishing.

Philip Morris expects complete phasing out of traditional cigarettes by the first quarter of 2010, while major rival .J. Reynolds would stop the manufacture of traditional cigarettes even sooner.

However, as smoking rates keep falling, deaths in fires caused by tobacco products had been reduced significantly even before the FSC came to the market. According to statistics, in 1985, almost 2,000 people passed away in fires caused by smoking materials. In 2005, 800 deaths were registered.

When New York approved fire-safe cigarettes, becoming the first American state to do it, the number of cigarette-caused fires dropped dramatically: in 2003 there were 38 deadly residential fires across New York and only 24 fatal fires happened in 2007. So, looking on the example of New York, many states easily approved similar legislations.