From: Clyde & Co.
Article by Chris Morrison and Kathryn Turner
With cigarettes already the single biggest cause of fire deaths in the UK, a recent study has revealed that fake cigarettes filtering onto the market pose an even bigger danger.
***
However, the active word above is ‘sold’, meaning sold legally. What about the increasing numbers of counterfeit cigarettes smuggled into the country as the price of legal brands continue to rise? And it is not just fake cigarettes bought in pubs or on the street which pose a risk. Raids recently conducted by trading standards officers on nine shops in Derbyshire revealed that only one of 18 samples tested features the mandatory RIP bands.
Apart from the obvious fire risk, fake cigarettes also carry huge health risks and are even more toxic than genuine brands, often containing noxious cancer-causing chemicals such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, benzene and formaldehyde, sawdust, tobacco beetles and, in some cases, rat droppings.
