When speaking of safe cigarette brands, even Philip Morris acknowledges that there is no such thing as a safe cigarette. Yet New York, in 2004, sought to rectify that. Since June of that year all cigarette brands in that state are safe. Whether Cherokee brand cigarettes, cheap name brand cigarettes, organically grown cigarette brands or Reno brand cigarettes – if they are sold in New York, they are now safe, fire-safe.

It is true, in an effort to curtail the fires set each year by smoker who fall asleep while smoking cigarettes, brands of the smokes now have to be fire safe so as to extinguish themselves if they are not puffed for a period of time. While the number of deaths and injuries reported because of fires has been staggering, it has been found that a number of these could have been avoided if cigarettes had not been mishandled, forgotten, or simply been placed on flammable materials and the smoker then drifted to sleep.

While the requirement to change the manufacture of cigarette brands to comply with the new regulation was met with murmurs and complaints from the tobacco manufacturers who had to work hard to convert all of their basic brand cigarettes to utilize the more burn safe paper, it was the importers foreign native brand cigarettes that had to work the hardest and saw big cuts into their profit margins when their cigarette brands were swept off the shelves for noncompliance. Smokers who wanted purchase Japanese brand cigarettes at times had to look elsewhere to find their favorite smokes simply because some cigarette brands were unable or unwilling to comply.

While this – at face value – may have given the common cigarette brands a leg up in the cigarette market, the reality shows that the search for certain cigarette brand names on the Internet has skyrocketed. After all, the regulation for fire safe brands of cigarettes only applies to the smokes sold and bought within the state of New York, but it does not require every cigarette brand that is smoked within the state to comply. Internet sales are up and those who do not mind crossing into other states to buy what they no longer get at home also is an activity that many engage in.

Those asked to fill out a questionnaire for cigarette brands have complained that the new cigarettes are harder to smoke and that they tend to go out quickly. This is true for any kind of smoke, from the cigarette brand with ultra-low yield to the no filter, high tar brands. At this point in time it is too early to tell if New York’s idea of a safe cigarette is paying off or if smokers are simply finding new avenues to purchase their smokes and thus it is simply the brick and mortar reseller of cigarettes who is left holding the bag.