Kretek

Kretek (krē'tek) are cigarettes made with a complex blend of tobacco, cloves and a flavoring 'sauce'. The word "kretek" itself is an onomatopoetic term for the crackling sound of burning cloves.

Haji Jamahri, a resident of Kudus, Java, created kreteks in the early 1880s as a means to deliver the medicinal eugenol of cloves to the lungs, as it was thought to help asthma. It cured his chest pains and he started to market his invention to the village, but he died before he could mass market it. M. Nitisemito took his place and began to commercialize the new cigarettes. Today, kretek manufacturers directly employ over 180,000 people in Indonesia and an additional 10 million indirectly.

Partly due to favorable taxation compared to "white" cigarettes, kreteks are by far the most widely-smoked form of cigarettes in Indonesia, where about 90% of smokers usually smoke kreteks. In Indonesia, there are hundreds of kretek manufacturers, including small local makers and major brands. Most of the widely-known international brands, including Bentoel, Djarum, Gudang Garam, Sampoerna, Dji Sam Soe, and Wismilak, originate from Indonesia. Nat Sherman of the United States produces cigarettes branded as "A Touch of Clove" but are arguably not kreteks since they contain clove flavoring in the filter rather than actual clove spice mixed with the tobacco.

Health effects
Djarum Black cigarettes sold in Europe and South American countries have 10–12mg tar and 1mg nicotine, as indicated on the pack. This level of tar and nicotine is comparable to the majority of other regular or "full-flavor" cigarettes available. However, Djarum Black cigarettes produced for consumption in Indonesia contain a significantly higher quantity of Tar and Nicotine, 25mg and 1.6mg respectively. In Canada, Djarum Black cigarettes are listed as containing 42.2–76mg of tar and 1.88–3.39mg of nicotine, a significant amount more than most other cigarettes.

The venous plasma nicotine and carbon monoxide levels from 10 smokers were tested after smoking kreteks and were found to be similar to non-clove brands of cigarettes, such as Marlboro.

Rats were given equal inhalation doses of conventional tobacco cigarettes and kreteks over a short period. Those that had inhaled kreteks did not appear to show worse health effects compared to those that had inhaled conventional cigarettes. The study was repeated with a 14-day exposure and kreteks again did not produce worse health effects than conventional cigarettes.

The eugenol in clove smoke causes a numbing of the throat which can diminish the gag reflex in users, leading researchers to recommend caution for individuals with respiratory infections. There have also been a few cases of aspiration pneumonitis in individuals with normal respiratory tracts possibly because of the diminished gag reflex. Researchers recommend that people who have an allergy to cloves should avoid kreteks.

Legal status
In the United States, kreteks have been the subject of legal restrictions and political debate, including a proposed 2004 US Senate bill that would have prohibited cigarettes from having a "characterising flavor" of certain ingredients other than tobacco and menthol. A study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control found kreteks account for a relatively small percentage of underage smoking, and their use was declining among high school students. Critics of the bill argued that support of the bill by the large U.S. tobacco maker Philip Morris, which makes only conventional and menthol cigarettes, indicated that the bill was an attempt to protect the company from competition.

Some U.S. states, including Utah, New Mexico, and Maryland, have passed laws that prohibit the sale of kreteks. On 14 March 2005, Philip Morris International announced the purchase of Indonesian tobacco company PT HM Sampoerna after acquiring a 40% stake in Sampoerna from a number of Sampoerna’s principal shareholders.tobaccojournal.com Oct 2006