BERKELEY, Calif. -- They look like a marijuana joints and they taste like jellybeans. Bidi cigarettes come in a variety of flavors and can be found in numerous smoke shops throughout the Bay Area.

The smokes from India consist of ground up tobacco wrapped in a flavored Indian leaf called Tendo. And they are popular, very popular, with teens and college students.

"Nobody likes the taste of cigarettes so if they make them taste like strawberry or lime it's a lot better," said Hilary Lawson, a UC Berkeley student.

Irene Ma, another Berkeley undergrad, agrees.

"I have some friends who tried them before and they are like: 'Oh, they come in chocolate flavor or strawberry and they just think it is fun," she said.

But Bidis sweet taste hides a deadly secret.

"There is no question these cigarettes are toxic and probably even more toxic than regular cigarettes," said Dr. Neal Benowitz, a UCSF researcher.

Benowitz has researched the hazards of smoking for decades. He says he has found some disturbing facts about Bidi cigarettes.

"What has been observed in countries like India where they use them widely, the rates of lung cancer and throat cancer and mouth cancer are as high or higher for smokers of Bidi cigarettes compared to commercial cigarettes," Benowitz said.

Benowitz says the real danger comes when young smokers turn to Bidis for all the wrong reasons.

"One is they are perceived as natural, not processed not made by a big tobacco company and they are perceived as safer, unfortunately that is not true," he said.

Benowitz says for some people it is hard to believe this small cigarette is so dangerous. But research shows Bidis contain more nicotine per gram of tobacco than regular cigarettes, which means they are more addictive.

"A bidi is something which does not have any burning enhancers in them so you have to take a big puff and it often goes out," he said. "What you find is somebody smoking a Bidi cigarettes takes more puffs than a regular cigarette."

"You take a deep puff in your lungs and you tend to hold it there longer so you are exposing your deep lungs to more cancer causing chemicals."

Many Bidi brands don't have filters and if you look inside a "filtered" one you can see the "filter" is actually a tiny piece of cotton.

"I knew they were worse but I like them because they were flavored but I never smoked them habitually," said Erik Robertson, another UC Berkeley student.

Classmate Ryan Carmichael says flavored or not, he doesn't like Bidi but does smoke American Spirit cigarettes manufactured in the United States. He chooses American Spirit because he believes less is better.

"You smoke less because you have to actually roll them every time you smoke as opposed to having the convenience of actually have a pack of cigarettes and pulling one out when ever you want to smoke," he said.

American Spirit is also marketed as all natural, but even though there are no additives there is still a real threat.

"The problem with the natural concept is that most of the toxic substances in tobacco smoke don't come from additives," Benowitz said. "They come from just burning organic material, burning tobacco leaves."

"The most important message is a cigarette is a cigarette and when you smoke cigarettes you deliver a lot of toxins to your body."