Called “bidis,” the
exotic cigarettes from India and Southeast Asia are made of tobacco wrapped
in a leaf and tied with a string. For
the U.S. market, vanilla, cherry, root beer, or other flavors are added.
After sampling the New Jersey youth, Mary Hrywna, M.P.H., and colleagues
found that about 12 percent of middle school students and 34 percent of
high school kids used any kind of tobacco. However, 5 percent of the middle-schoolers
and 9 percent of high school said they used bidis.
Black high school students were more likely to use bidis than white students.
In middle school, Hispanic and black students were more than twice as likely
as whites to smoke them.
Bidis’ candy-like taste and a street reputation as “natural” products
lead young people, especially minorities, to consider them safer than
ordinary cigarettes, says Hrywna, of the University of Medicine and Dentistry
of
New Jersey in New Brunswick.
Students who believed that bidis were safer were more likely to smoke
them, as were users of other tobacco products, the study showed.
But bidis deliver more nicotine than conventional cigarettes, increasing
the likelihood of addiction and raising the risk of cancers of the throat,
mouth, lungs, esophagus, stomach and liver, say the researchers.
Because enforcement of laws governing tobacco sales to minors concentrates
on cigarettes, products like bidis or snuff are probably easier to buy,
says Hrywna. Other researchers have found that bidis are often sold without
tax stamps, suggesting they are imported illegally and thus can be sold
more cheaply than conventional cigarettes.
“A comprehensive approach to youth tobacco prevention and cessation
campaigns must address other tobacco products as well as cigarettes,” says
Hrywna. Those approaches should also pay attention to groups like black
youth, who use bidis, cigars and cigarettes about equally.
Future research should try to understand just why minority youth are so
attracted to bidis, says Hrywna. Tobacco control efforts must also combat
the illusion that they are not as harmful as regular cigarettes.
“Public health messages targeted at youth must dispel the dangerous
myth that other tobacco products like cigars and bidis are safer than conventional
cigarettes,” she says.
