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Chicago Joins the War On Bidis

R S Shankar

After San Francisco, Phoenix, and Boston began alerting teenagers against the consumption of bidis and warning the importers who sold the bidis without health warnings, Chicago joined the battle last week.

While the other cities have prepared to stop the sale of bidis to minors and won promises from many importers that they would carry health hazard warnings, the Chicago City Council voted unanimously to ban bidis.

While the United States Customs have banned the import of Mangalore Ganesh Bidis, apparently because child labor was used in their manufacture, no city has stepped forward to ban them.

City officials in Chicago had said it would become the first city in America to prohibit the sale of bidis if the entire council approved the measure.

But bidi importers wondered if the ban would be sustained in a court of law. While they agreed that they should label the imported products, they have been protesting that the criticism and charges against bidi use are exaggerated. They deny that they are targeting children.

But supporters of ban on bidis remain resolute. They are convinced that the number of teenagers smoking bidis is steadily increasing. About 31 per cent of San Francisco's teenagers smoke, according to Ebonne Smith, project co-ordinator at Booker T Washington Community Service Center in San Francisco.

According to a study initiated and conducted by Smith and other anti-smoking groups, at least 44 per cent of teenage smokers believe that bidis can't give them cancer.

Like in San Francisco, clergymen have also joined the fight against bidis. The Rev Michael Pfleger, says the ban would stop the spread of bidi use in Chicago.

And Illinois Senator Richard Durbin, who knows Chicago in and out, and who is spearheading a national campaign against bidis, is supporting the ban.

"We need to take this fad seriously, since it puts kids on the road to nicotine addiction and future disease," Durbin wrote to the council.

"Parents should know that they need to talk to their children about a product that, although it may look harmless and taste like candy, is really a deadly poison."

Durbin last month said bidis are smuggled into America, so that they are sold at a far cheaper price (in California 25 bidis cost $ 2.20 versus $ 2.50 to $ 3 for 20 cigarettes) than cigarettes. He has urged the US Customs Service to prevent smuggling of bidis, contending that avoidance of excise taxes makes them cheaper for consumers.

The city council has not provided any statistics about bidi use. Recent research reported by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that 40 per cent of urban youths surveyed in Massachusetts had smoked bidis at least once, and that 16 per cent were still bidi smokers.

Chicago Alderman, Terry Peterson, who sponsored the proposed ban, said that the use of lemon-lime, chocolate, mango and strawberry flavors made bidis especially attractive to teenagers, who thought bidis were harmless, unlike cigarettes.

Peterson was quoted as saying in the Chicago Tribune that the flavoring is added only after the bidis arrived in the US.

Among the supporters of the ban is Diana Hackbarth, a professor at the Loyola University School of Nursing and board member of the Chicago Lung Association.

Hackbarth said the fruit flavors make kids feel like they are smoking candy -- more like a lollipop than a cancer-causing tobacco product.

"Kids report that they like the taste of bidis over cigarettes, that bidis are easy to buy and that they think they are safer than cigarettes," Hackbarth reports.

For more information about bidis and tobacco consumption, go to http://ash.org.

The Action on Smoking and Health is located at 2013 H Street, NW, Washington, DC 20006, USA, (202) 659-4310.

ASH is a 31-year-old national legal-action anti-smoking and non-smokers' rights organization entirely supported by tax-deductible contributions.

The Center for Disease Control Web site (www.cdc.gov) has also useful information on tobacco and bidi use.

EARLIER REPORT:
Why Ganesh Bidis Were Banned

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