Are clove cigarettes healthier than regular cigarettes?

Clove cigarettes are not healthier than regular cigarettes.  Users often have the mistaken notion that smoking clove cigarettes is safer than smoking regular cigarettes. But this is a tobacco product with the same health risks as cigarettes. In fact, clove cigarettes have been shown to deliver more nicotine, carbon monoxide, and tar than regular cigarettes.

Clove cigarettes, also called kreteks (kree-teks), originated in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries. They contain 60 to 70 percent tobacco and 30 to 40 percent ground cloves, clove oil, and other additives. The chemicals in cloves have been linked to asthma and other lung diseases.

Clove cigarettes contain a mixture of tobacco, cloves, and other flavors, which many people mistakenly believe are healthier than regular cigarettes. But in fact, they contain as much tobacco as a regular cigarette.
Clove cigarettes (and other flavored cigarettes except for menthol) were banned in the United States by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, H.R. 1256, in 2009. This legislation also prohibits the use of marketing strategies that misrepresent cigarette products as lower-risk alternatives, including the words “light” or “ultra-light.”