NRS477.192. Sale of cigarettes prohibited unless cigarettes are tested and certified; alternative testing; reports; regulations of State Fire Marshal. [Effective until the date upon which a federal law establishing standards for fire-safe cigarettes becomes effective.]

      1.  Except as otherwise provided in this section, a person shall not sell or offer to sell any cigarettes in this State unless:

      (a) The cigarettes have been tested in accordance with this section and meet the performance standard required by this section;

      (b) The manufacturer has submitted to the State Fire Marshal, pursuant to NRS 477.194, a written certification in which the cigarettes are listed; and

      (c) The packages that contain the cigarettes have been marked pursuant to NRS 477.198.

      2.  Except as otherwise provided in this section, all cigarettes that are sold or offered for sale in this State must comply with the following method of testing and performance standard:

      (a) The cigarettes must be tested in accordance with the ASTM International Standard ASTM E2187-04, “Standard Test Method for Measuring the Ignition Strength of Cigarettes.”

      (b) The testing must be conducted on 10 layers of filter paper.

      (c) The testing must be conducted by a laboratory which has been accredited pursuant to standard ISO/IEC 17025 of the International Organization for Standardization or which meets any other comparable accreditation standard required by the State Fire Marshal.

      (d) The laboratory conducting the testing must have a program for quality control that includes a procedure for determining the repeatability of the test results. The repeatability value must not exceed 0.19.

      (e) Not more than 25 percent of the cigarettes tested in a test trial may exhibit full-length burns in the test trial. Compliance with the performance standard required by this paragraph must be determined based on a complete test trial consisting of 40 replicate tests for each cigarette tested.

      3.  This section does not require additional testing if the cigarettes have been tested for any other purpose in a manner that is consistent with this section.

      4.  Any testing performed or caused to be performed by the State Fire Marshal to determine the compliance of a cigarette with the performance standard required by this section must be conducted in accordance with this section.

      5.  Any cigarette listed in a certification submitted to the State Fire Marshal pursuant to NRS 477.194 which uses lowered permeability bands in the cigarette paper to achieve compliance with the performance standard required by this section must have not less than two nominally identical bands on the paper surrounding the tobacco column, at least one of which must be located not less than 15 millimeters from the lighting end of the cigarette. For cigarettes on which the bands are positioned by design, there must be at least two bands, one of which is located not less than 15 millimeters from the lighting end of the cigarette and one of which is located not less than 10 millimeters from:

      (a) The filter end of the tobacco column if the cigarette is filtered; or

      (b) The labeled end of the tobacco column if the cigarette is nonfiltered.

      6.  If the State Fire Marshal:

      (a) Determines that a cigarette cannot be tested in accordance with the requirements of subsection 2, the manufacturer of the cigarette shall propose an alternative method of testing and performance standard to the State Fire Marshal for approval and, if the State Fire Marshal approves the alternative method of testing and determines that the alternative performance standard proposed by the manufacturer is substantially equivalent to the performance standard set forth in paragraph (e) of subsection 2, the alternative method of testing and performance standard may be used to certify the cigarette pursuant to NRS 477.194; or

      (b) Determines that:

             (1) Another state has enacted requirements which are substantially similar to those set forth in this section for the fire safety of cigarettes and which include a method of testing and a performance standard that are substantially similar to those set forth in subsection 2; and

             (2) The officials responsible for carrying out those requirements in the other state have approved the alternative method of testing and performance standard for a particular cigarette that the manufacturer has proposed as meeting the fire safety standards of the law of that state under a provision similar to this subsection,

Ê the State Fire Marshal shall authorize the manufacturer to use the alternative method of testing and performance standard to certify that cigarette for sale in this State, unless the State Fire Marshal has a reasonable basis for denying the authorization.

      7.  Each manufacturer shall maintain copies of the reports of all tests conducted on all cigarettes sold or offered for sale in this State for a period of 3 years after the completion of the testing and shall make copies of the reports available to the State Fire Marshal and the Attorney General upon written request. Any manufacturer that fails to make such copies available to the State Fire Marshal or Attorney General within 60 days after receiving a written request therefor is subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $10,000 for each day after the 60th day that the manufacturer fails to make the copies available.

      8.  The State Fire Marshal may, by regulation, adopt by reference a subsequent ASTM International Standard Test Method for Measuring the Ignition Strength of Cigarettes if the State Fire Marshal determines that the subsequent method of testing does not result in a change in the percentage of full-length burns exhibited by any tested cigarette when compared to the percentage of full-length burns the same cigarette would exhibit when tested in accordance with the ASTM International Standard ASTM E2187-04 and the performance standard set forth in paragraph (e) of subsection 2. If the State Fire Marshal adopts the subsequent method of testing, it may be used as an alternative method for the certification of cigarettes.

      9.  This section does not prohibit:

      (a) A wholesale dealer or retail dealer from selling his or her existing inventory of cigarettes on or after June 3, 2010, if the wholesale dealer or retail dealer can establish that Nevada cigarette revenue stamps were affixed to the packages of cigarettes before June 3, 2010, and the cigarettes were purchased by the wholesale dealer or retail dealer before June 3, 2010, in a quantity comparable to the inventory purchased by the wholesale dealer or retail dealer during the same period of the immediately preceding year.

      (b) The sale of cigarettes solely for the purpose of consumer testing. As used in this paragraph, “consumer testing” means an assessment of cigarettes that is conducted by a manufacturer, or under the control and direction of a manufacturer, to evaluate consumer acceptance of the cigarettes, using only the number of cigarettes that is reasonably necessary for that assessment.

      10.  As used in this section, unless the context otherwise requires:

      (a) “Program for quality control” means a program pursuant to which laboratory procedures are established to ensure that:

             (1) The test results are not affected by operator bias, systematic and nonsystematic methodological errors or equipment-related problems; and

             (2) The repeatability of the test results remains within the required repeatability value set forth in paragraph (d) of subsection 2 for all test trials used to certify cigarettes.

      (b) “Repeatability value” means the range of values within which the repeat results of cigarette test trials conducted by a single laboratory will fall 95 percent of the time.

      (Added to NRS by 2009, 2434)