I Didn’t Know That . . .

Q: Are clove cigarettes a safe alternative to regular ones?

A: No, according to the UC Berkeley Wellness Letter. Clove cigarettes are generally about 60% tobacco and 40% ground cloves. The cloves add their own harmful substances to the smoke, particularly eugenol and related compounds. These act as an anesthetic to the throat, impair the clearing of mucus and inhibit the gag reflex. Clove cigarettes also deliver more tar than regular cigarettes, which is bad for asthmatics, and they may promote bronchitis and pneumonia in healthy people.

Vegetable-based cigarettes also present a hazard, even though they contain no nicotine or tobacco. Recent research published in the British medical journal Lancet shows that these cigarettes produce high levels of carbon monoxide--so high that researchers had to discontinue their experiments with volunteers who smoke them.