Are Bidi Cigarettes A Safe-Smoking Alternative?

Bidis are legally imported from India and are thin unfiltered
cigarettes hand-wrapped in Brown leaves and tied with short pieces of thread
and are popular with school kids under 18 because they are cheaper than the
cost of cigarettes and come in a variety of flavors including root beer,
orange, lemon-lime and strawberry.
Bidis deliver twice the amount of tar and seven times the amount of nicotine
of regular cigarettes.
Like regular cigarettes, bidis can cause cancer and lead to heart disease,
heigh blood pressure, and a host of other serious health problems.
Because bidis deliver greater doses of nicotine to the bloodstream, they are
far more addictive than cigarettes.
70 percent of Bidis sold in the US do not have the Surgeon General’s warning
about the health risks of smoking.
44 percent of kids who smoke bidis do so because they believe that bidis are
not addictive and are less dangerous to one’s health than cigarettes.
From the best selling book, Eat
This Lose That! Written by well-known Cardiologist, Dr.
Kota J. Reddy, from the Reddy Wellness Center, says, “Bidis are more
detrimental to your health than your traditional cigarettes and smoking hookah
(sheesha), they are also flavored to make them attractive to the younger
generation. That’s a deadly combination.”