Anti-smoking campaigners want ban on too-toxic cigarettes

Anti-smoking campaigners Stichting Rookpreventie Jeugd , Amsterdam city council and 18 other organisations are going to court to demand a ban on cigarettes with too much tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide, the AD reports..

Tests carried out by public health institute RIVM have shown that many cigarettes contain more of the harmful substances than is flagged up by the official measuring method used by the Dutch product safety board NVWA.

An earlier request to NVWA to ban the cigarettes by the Stichting Rookpreventie Jeugd, which focuses on preventing young people from smoking, was rejected, as was a petition to the health ministry. The next port of call for the campaigners is the administrative court in Rotterdam which will look at the case on Monday, the paper said.

Cigarettes can contain no more than 10 mgs of tar, 1 mg of nicotine and 10 mg carbon monoxide and all brands claim they are keeping to the norm.

However, the RIVM tests showed that 43 out of 100 cigarettes exceed the norm for one or more of the toxic substances. Because there is a margin of 20% none of the producers has ever been fined, with the exception of Lexington. The size of the fine is unknown, the AD said.

The Dutch term for a cigarette that ostensibly complies with the norm but doesn’t is ‘sjoemelsigaret’.