Hyderabad, May 30 -- Are you smoking 'herbal' cigarettes? Do you think they are safe and a viable alternative to conventional cigarettes?

Then, read this carefully. Herbal cigarettes can be as damaging as tobacco cigarettes, says a study jointly done by the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar in Gujarat and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), US.

Herbal cigarettes are widely sold in India and abroad as natural, tobacco-free and even therapeutic alternatives to conventional cigarettes. They produce emissions that can be comparable to or even more damaging than tobacco smoke, the study reported. These cigarettes are also outside of the country's main tobacco control law.

The study compared emissions from two of Ind...