[2] In 1929, a cigarette-ignited fire in Lowell, Massachusetts, caught the attention of U.S. Congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers (D-MA); she called for the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) (now the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)) to develop the first less fire-prone cigarette, which NBS introduced in 1932.
In 1978 Andrew McGuire, a burn survivor, started a grassroots campaign to prevent house fire deaths by changing the cigarette.
[7] Legislative activity continued in the states while the federal government, cigarette companies, and advocates discussed next steps.
McGuire and colleagues continued to inform advocates about cigarette fires and prevention strategies, legislation and liability.
[11][12] Federal efforts to implement a standard stalled, as the Reagan and Bush administrations preferred free markets to regulation.
[13][14][15] Based on the NIST research, ASTM International's Committee E05 on Fire Standards developed E 2187, a "Standard Test Method for Measuring the Ignition Strength of Cigarettes", which evaluates cigarette's capacity to set fire to bedding and upholstered furniture in 2002.
[11] In 2000, New York passed the first state law requiring the introduction of cigarettes that have a lower likelihood of starting a fire, with flammability evaluated by E 2187.
The first successful lawsuit resulted in a 2 million dollar settlement for a young child severely burned in a car fire allegedly caused by a cigarette.
[20] On November 30, 2007, 27 EU states approved a European Commission proposal to require the tobacco industry to use fire-retardant paper in all cigarettes.
[23] In the UK a proposal to ban the "old style" cigarettes in order to implement a fire-safe alternative was dropped as it is encompassed within the EU directive.
An in-house scientist (Michael Lee Watkins) analyzed the data and concluded Merit to actually be a greater fire risk than conventional cigarettes.