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Kreteks or clove cigarettes, are Indonesian cigarettes made with a complex blend of tobacco, cloves and a flavoring 'sauce'. It is believed that the name kretek, which is the Indonesian word for the cigarettes, comes from the crackling sound the cloves make when they are burned.
Kreteks were originally created by Haji Jamahri, a resident of Kudus, Java, Indonesia, in the early 1880's for medicinal purposes as a way to deliver the eugenol in the 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 employ well over 180,000 people in Indonesia, which accounts for 95% of the world's clove market.
Kreteks are by far the most widely-smoked form of tobacco in Indonesia, where about ninety percent of smokers usually smoke kreteks instead of plain tobacco, which are called "whites." In the United States, clove cigarettes have been associated with artists and the goth, punk, and indie subcultures.
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. A few brands do originate from other countries, such as the United States' Nat Sherman. The manufacture of a "true" clove cigarette (i.e., containing natural clove and certain spices, as opposed to sprayed on clove flavoring) is considered an art that has only been mastered in Indonesia and Malaysia.
Health effects
The health effects above and beyond normal cigarette smoking are unclear. Studies have shown that kreteks contain somewhat less nicotine than normal cigarettes, owing to a portion of the tobacco being replaced by cloves. However, they do contain remarkably high quantities of tar — 35mg to 52.3mg tar per cigarette is typical for Gudang Garams. *.
Kreteks also tend to be smoked more intensely and for a longer amount of time than normal cigarettes. The venous plasma nicotine and carbon monoxide levels from ten 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 amount of time. 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 time and kreteks again did not appear to produce worse health effects than conventional cigarettes.[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=2073125
The eugenol in clove smoke can cause a numbing of the throat which can diminish gag reflexes, 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 recommended that people who have an allergy to cloves should avoid kreteks.
There is no support for the common myth that clove cigarettes will make an individual's lungs bleed any more than a normal cigarette, and claims that kreteks contain fiberglass are an urban legend. A heavy user may cough up a larger amount of blood because of diminished gag reflexes, thus making it appear that cloves caused increased bleeding.
Legal status
In the United States, kreteks have been the subject of legal restrictions and political debate, including a proposed 2004 Senate billthat would have prohibited cigarettes from having a "characterizing flavor" of certain ingredients other than tobacco and menthol. The bill was motivated by concerns that flavored cigarettes, including kreteks, were especially attractive to children and teenagers. However, a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control indicated that kreteks account for a relatively small percentage of underage tobacco use, and its use was declining among high school students. [http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5245a2.htm Critics of this bill argued that support of the bill by the large US 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 US states, including Utah, New Mexico and Maryland, have passed laws that prohibit the sale of kreteks in those states. [http://www.rjrt.com/legal/stateLawView.asp?State=md
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