Thanks to Chuck Tauman of Oregon for the above links about progress on the fire-safe cigarette issue.
In addition to being a statement of funding, Tobacco Institute (TI) budgets describe in fair detail the strategies, goals and tactics the Tobacco Institute used to undermine public health efforts around tobacco. This 154-page TI budget document from 1988 describes strategies to undermine "fire safe" cigarette legislation. The Institute acknowledges that "the latest data indicate that the trend [in the number of fire deaths related to careless smoking] has leveled off and even increased," and that "careless smoking is still regarded by many as an important cause of accidental fires."
Fearing the that the national increase in cigarette-caused fire deaths would raise calls for fire-safe cigarette legislation, the Tobacco Institute started a program wherein the they gave away a grants to hundreds of local fire stations across the country, ostensibly to help with "fire education." The real purpose of the program was to decrease fire service hostility towards the tobacco industry and eliminate calls from fire service organizations for fire-safe cigarettes.
To help further derail fire-safe cigarette legislation, the industry insisted that laws mandating "fire safe cigarettes" infringed on its "trade secret" rights. The Institute funded vast programs to alter public officials' opinions about the importance of trade secrets and to promote the notion that trade secrets are vastly important to the free market, and as such cannot be interfered with.
Despite these vast and well-funded efforts by the industry, substantial progress has been made towards fire-safe cigarettes in recent years. Two events occurred in 2003 that few people are aware of and that demonstrate the progress made on this important public health issue:
Philip Morris settled a burn case in Texas for multi-million dollars...
http://www.tobacco.org/articles/category/fires/?mode=listing&records_per_page=25&pattern=grisham
...and New York State adopted rules requiring all manufacturers to sell fire-safe cigarettes by June 2004: http://www.dos.state.ny.us/pres/pr2003/12_31.htm
In addition, such laws have been proposed in New Jersey, Illinois http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-coun11.html
Maine http://www.bangornews.com/editorialnews/articles/414080_123003firesafecigarett_mhaskell.cfm
Canada http://www.smokefree.net/canada_fire/
and Massachusetts http://www.tobacco.org/news/107541.html)
In 2000, Philip Morris began using "fire-safe" paper on Merit cigarettes. http://www.philipmorrisusa.com/pressroom/content/press_release/articles/pr_July_12_2000_PMUTLNCPNOAMC.asp