Yeah, band saws, espececially if you can reduce the speed, are far safer than table saws and radial arm saws. Circular saws, even with close tolerances on blade slots, fences and other mechanisms, are notorious for kicking back or throwing the material when cutting small pieces. Combine that with a worn/dull or gummed up blade (from heavy cutting of resinous woods such as fir or pine), and you've got a lethal recipe for destruction.
My dad used to build cabinets, tables, chests of drawers (among other types of furniture) from laminated particle board. His stock material was waste stock from a local office furniture manufacturer. He'd pick up a trailer and/or pickup truck load, haul it home to his workshop, sort and stock the pieces according to sizes and begin building what he could out of the material he had. He did this to pass time after he retired and gave the finished products for charitiy to the needy. Some of the trim pieces and strips for supports that he cut made for a dangerous situation, as he learned the hard way...lost 2/3 of one finger, 1/2 of the next, and about 1/3 of the third finger on one hand (if I recall correctly) when his radial arm saw bound up and kicked back. It happens soo fast that you'll generally never hear, feel or see it coming...zip, and it's over. I've had a chainsaw or two try to throw a snarling chain my way a few times back when I was young and dumb...chainsaws are wicked when they get a mind of their own, but not quite as bad as circular saws, IMO.
It's not worth the risk to make your own sawdust for smoking, IMO, or even smaller cut chips. Collecting the dust from cutting operations is one thing, but cutting for the sole purpose of making dust requires special equipment to do it safely. If you cut to reasonably managable sized pieces for your saw, then break it down farther with hand tools, or just do combination cutting (use the dust for smokewood dust and the pieces to chunk or chip out).
Also, don't forget the trusty wood rasp...you can get wood dust to medium/fine size with a rasp and your risk for injury is almost null. Planers can make rather small chips, so that would be another very good option, and again, low injury risk.
Power tools have limitations and a threshold for safety, and the only way to find out for sure where the line needs to be drawn is to cross that line...and then, it's too late.
Stay safe, fellow smokers!
Eric