FIRE SAFETY CIGARETTES CAN SAVE LIVES - LIZ LYNNE

2.56.47pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 17th Jul 2007

Local MEP Liz Lynne, Vice President of the European Parliament's Employment and Social Affairs Committee, has this week called for EU action on potentially life-saving cigarette fire safety standards, as the tobacco industry has been able, yet unwilling to act for over twenty years.

Liz has tabled a parliamentary question to the European Commission and urged MEPs to sign up to a written declaration on 'fire-safe' cigarettes.

Speaking today from Brussels, Liz said:

"It is scandalous that the tobacco industry has known how to produce self-extinguishing cigarettes for over 20 years but has refused to voluntarily produce them."

"The technology exists and it would be cost effective, so the time is right to introduce these life-saving measures at EU level."

"Giving up smoking is of course the best way to prevent a cigarette-related fire, but I appreciate that many smokers do not wish to give up. Yet many deaths, injuries and destruction of property could be prevented through the introduction of minimum fire safety standards for cigarettes."

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

Cigarettes are responsible for an estimated one third of fire deaths and most non-fatal injuries in most European countries, causing at least 1000 deaths every year.

Elsewhere, 47% of the US population now live in states where non-fire-safe cigarettes are already illegal or about to become so, with further states planning similar legislation. New York State was the first place in the world to introduce such legislation in 2003.