The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Previous internal industry documents research revealed that reduced ignition propensity cigarettes (IP) were developed by manufacturers despite their coordinated political strategy to block fire-safe cigarette legislation. Legislation of cigarette IP performance standards should be informed by the most current science. This research identifies recent industry advances pertaining to cigarette IP and its evaluation.

Methods: Internal tobacco industry documents made publicly available through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement were researched using the web based Legacy Tobacco Documents Library and Tobacco Documents Online.

Results: Industry cigarette IP research and development beyond the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and American Society for Testing and Materials standards includes recent program whose objectives were to: a) improve the science base for evaluation of cigarette IP by identifying cigarette thermal parameters that may provide a basis for indicating relative IP; b) characterize the current NIST IP tests using complementary techniques and identify scientifically sound quantitative alternatives or improvements. Advances include: a) use of non-contact infrared radiometry and thermal non-destructive evaluation to measure radiant flux along position of burning cigarettes and the relative radiated power with banded and non-banded paper; b) evaluation of the thermal performance of banded paper cigarettes and demonstration of the ability of banded cigarettes to modulate radiant flux; and c) identification of parameters which may be useful as indicators of relative IP. Important findings include band width may be more important in IP behavior than band spacing.