Cigarette manufacturers will have to sell ‘fire-safe’ cigarettes, i.e. cigarettes with lowered ignition propensity, in North Carolina under a bill signed into law by governor Mike Easley.

The law, which will go into effect on 1 January 2010, requires that cigarettes sold in the state be made with paper that includes two bands of material that smother and extinguish burning tobacco unless someone is smoking the cigarette.
A total of 21 other states have adopted similar laws, and North Carolina became the second major tobacco-producing state to adopt such measures. Kentucky enacted a ‘fire-safe’ cigarette law in March.