Cigarette filters do nothing for smokers’ health and just create plastic pollution – they should be banned

That doesn't mean you should stick to Camels

Jonathan Livingstone-Banks, University of Oxford and Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, UMass Amherst

Cigarette filters were widely introduced in the 1950s, ostensibly to make smoking less harmful. With growing public concern about lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases, the tobacco industry responded not by making cigarettes safer, but by making them seem safer. Filters were the perfect innovation – not for health, but for public relations.

Over 70 years later, we know that filters don’t reduce harm. In fact, they may exacerbate some risks. By softening smoke and making it easier to inhale deeply, filters may actually raise the risk of lung cancer. In the early 1950s, one popular filter type even contained asbestos. Despite this, most smokers today still believe filters make cigarettes safer.

Beyond the health deception, cigarette filters create an environmental disaster. They’re made of a plastic called cellulose acetate. They don’t biodegrade but break down into microplastics, polluting our rivers and oceans.

And there are a lot of them. Cigarette butts are the single most littered item on the planet. An estimated 4.5 trillion are discarded each year, and roughly 800,000 metric tonnes of this plastic waste enters the environment annually. While legislation has restricted other single-use plastics like bottles, bags and straws, cigarette filters have largely escaped such regulatory attention.

Under pressure, some tobacco companies now market “biodegradable” filters made from new materials. But these are a false solution. Even so-called biodegradable filters offer no health benefit and continue to pollute ecosystems. They serve the industry by creating an illusion of environmental responsibility, all while maintaining the false perception that filters themselves are benign or necessary.

Democratic South County women win passage of lots of good legislation

General Assembly powerhouses

By Will Collette

Thank you Tina and Victoria

In case you haven’t noticed it, most of South County’s General Assembly members are Democratic women. Among the few exceptions are Charlestown-connected Rep. Bob Craven of No. Kingstown, one of the body’s most powerful members, and two Westerly DINOcrats, Sen. Sam Azzinaro and Rep. Brian Patrick Kennedy.

Then there’s MAGA outlier Sen. Elaine Morgan (R) whose contribution this session has consisted of embarrassing MAGA stunts including one where she impersonated a DOGE agent to try to get into a homelessness program in Providence.

The dominance of South County’s Democratic women shows in their remarkable output of significant legislation and, this year in particular, their ability to get these bills passed.

Now that this year’s General Assembly has closed, my inbox is filled with notices of bills passed. Sponsors of these bills include Charlestown’s Senator Victoria Gu and Tina Spears, South Kingstown’s Rep. Carol Hagan McEntee, Sen. Sue Sosnowski, Reps. Teresa Tanzi and Kathy Fogarty, and Sen. Alana DiMario.

Today’s roundup only includes bills passed at the end of the session, not the bills passed earlier. I’ve usually posted notices about those bills as they happened.

Rep. Megan Cotter (Richmond, Hopkinton, Exeter) scored her impressive achievements on bills to protect lives, land and homes in the past few weeks.

The greatest achievements are in the areas of affordable housing, land use and health care.

I congratulate them all. Trying to get anything done in the General Assembly is hard and often disappointing work but they can all take pride in their ability to get things done to benefit South County and the rest of Rhode Island.

Below, I’ve pasted in the reports on the bills that passed at the session’s close.

Rep. Tanzi introduces bill to include casinos in workplace smoking ban

"It is fundamentally wrong" to leave casino workers unprotected

Rep. Teresa A. Tanzi introduced legislation (2023 H-5237) to include casinos in the state’s law prohibiting smoking in workplaces.

“Casino workers are Rhode Islanders, parents, caregivers, taxpayers and human beings, and they deserve the same protections as everyone else in our state. It is fundamentally wrong to say that no one should be exposed to secondhand smoke in the workplace, but carve out an exception that leaves one group of workers not only unprotected, but in fact, bathed in smoke every day. There’s no excuse for continuing to endanger their health, and we need to pass this bill to let them breathe safely like everyone else,” said Representative Tanzi (D-Dist. 34, South Kingstown, Narragansett).

Casinos are currently exempted from the 2004 Public Health and Workplace Safety Act, which workers and advocates say has a detrimental impact on casino workers.