Health and Well-Being
Bidis - Small, Sweet and Deadly
Cherry-flavored cigarettes? How about chocolate, mango, or grape? They sound even worse than the original tobacco-only variety, but they're for real, and they're becoming increasingly popular with teens.
Bidis (pronounced "beedies") are small, unfiltered cigarettes containing sweet flavorings and flaked tobacco, hand-rolled in a leaf from an Indian plant called a tendu and tied on the end with a pink string. And although they've been exported to the United States from India for over 20 years, they've only recently become popular among kids. Experts from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) suspect that their kid-appeal stems from:
the fact that they're widely available at convenience stores, health food outlets, and even over the Internet their cheap price—a bundle of 20 bidis retails for just $1.50 (In India, bidis are termed "a poor man's cigarette.") their sweet taste and candy-like flavors—"They're dessert with a cigarette," said one 19-year-old San Francisco bidi smoker. Teens believe that bidis are cute, cool, less bitter and more natural than regular cigarettes. They also don't think they pose a health hazard. A Web site for a bidi distributor in India claimed that bidis are "inexpensive and less hazardous than cigarettes." And many teens buy into this marketing propaganda; 44 percent of adolescents who use bidis were found to believe that bidis cannot give them cancer.
More deadly than regular cigarettesIt's not just the appealing flavors and wide availability that make bidis deadly. According to the CDC:
Bidis produce as much as seven times more carbon monoxide and nicotine than cigarettes. The greater nicotine content in bidis makes them more addictive than cigarettes. Five times more tar is produced by bidis than regular cigarettes. The tendu leaf used to wrap bidis doesn't burn as easily as cigarette paper, so the smoker must inhale more deeply and more frequently to prevent the bidi from going out. Because of these deep, frequent inhalations, bidi smokers have been found to have twice the risk of lung cancer as cigarette smokers, and five times the risk of a nonsmoker, according to Dr. Saira Asma, an epidemiologist for the CDC. Over 80 percent of bidi packages do not carry the Surgeon General's health warning about the dangers of smoking. Currently, only Arizona has banned the sale or distribution of bidis. The Federal Trade Commission is currently investigating the importation of bidis, primarily because of the warning that's missing on the label, but would give no further comments on the investigation.
The CDC recommends that parents alert their teens to the fact that bidis are not safer than cigarettes and that they are, in fact, highly toxic.
Sources - The Centers for Disease Control
The Federal Trade Commission