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June 7th, 2012
03:01 PM ET
1 in 3 college students has smoked hookahThe problem, Dr. Brian Primack says, is that hookah smoking is a beautiful thing. Polished brass, woven rugs and intricate carvings create a culturally-rich atmosphere where friends can relax and socialize. Unfortunately, smoking hookah delivers the same chemical compounds as smoking a cigarette. In fact, one session (usually about 45 to 60 minutes) delivers approximately 100 times the smoke as a single cigarette, with 40 times the tar and 10 times the carbon monoxide. Hookah bars have been popping up around the country for the last decade. “We normally cater to 18 to 20-year-olds,” says Lance Freeman of The Egyptian Café & Hooka Bar in Indianapolis, Indiana. “We are a place to come to for people who can’t go to bars.” Primack’s latest study, published in the June issue of the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research, finds that 1 in 3 current college students has smoked hookah at some point; more than 50% of those students were not cigarette smokers. “In my opinion [hookah] is a lot better,” Freeman says. “There’s more flavor, it’s more mellow, it gives this tickle in your throat… it’s very relaxing.” Primack was giving a lecture on the dangers of smoking at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine when a student interrupted him. “He said, ‘No offense, but nobody really smokes anymore – we all do this hookah thing instead.” That moment launched Primack’s research into the hookah world. “It’s a very interesting public health puzzle. The same chemicals - in one form [are] reviled by many people, but the same people will go across the street and take it in this different format.” Better education is needed, Primack says, to show the similarities between hookah smoking and cigarette smoking. In a previous study the researcher found 92% of videos on YouTube showed hookah in positive light, compared to just 24% of cigarette videos. And only 26% of hookah bars use the word “tobacco” at all on the first page of their websites. Primack and his colleagues analyzed the survey responses of 105,012 students at 152 universities across the country for their most recent study. The population that participates in hookah smoking tends to be younger, male and white, but is found across all characteristics. The researchers don’t know yet if hookah is addictive. Smokers inhale twice the amount of nicotine in one hookah session as they do with a single cigarette, but long-term studies need to be done to see if it interferes with their life in the same way.
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In the middle east, when hashish is smoked in hookahs, what happens to their brains?
Um....have you read any news of the middle east in the last few years? There's your answer.
Same things as when you go through the public education system in the south and midwest.
They never mention how much a hookah costs, I have two neighbors, one from Iraq and one from Egypt. Both smoke their hookahs each one is about 4.5 feet tall and both cost over $2,000 dollars each, The tobacco is not leafy but comes in 1 inch square cubes, the cubes have the consistency of hash, the cube glow orangish-red for quit some time, it smells really nice but so do pipes, I just glad I never started smoking.
@loverpoint, That isn't the Shisha my friend, those are the coals used to bake the shisha. Typically made of pressed coconut shells, although others are more akin to quick light charcoal like for a grill. The shisha itself is hidden within the bowl, and then typically covered with aluminum foil.
That's all we need is another way to get young people to smoke to drive up our health costs. I don't care how good it feels. It's a slow death and we're all paying for it.
Articles like this do little to educate people and everything to raise terror about something that is virtually harmless.
If you want to try hookah, go do it. Doing it once will not do any harm to you. As long as you know that inhaling anything regarding smoke /combustion causes an increase chance of cancer over time. This applies to exhaust from your car, or burning a candle.
Hi Jerry, people in the middle east in fact do not smoke hash out of hookahs because it clogs the pipe too fast. When hash is smoked out of a hookah, it is the hash that affects a person's brain, not the tobacco, which is an entirely different chemical substance.
to loverpoint: If your friends spent that much on a hookah they were seriously ripped off. A hookah like that better have silver or gold on it!
My guess is that it proves to be less dangerous in the long run because no one says to themselves, "hey i'm gonna smoke my hookah on my way to work today. there'll be plenty of opportunity to do that while i'm walking in the street, or driving my car, or taking the bus."
Are ya that dumb, Jerry.......................
Dude...they aren't smoking tobacco out of the freakin' thing- how stupid is the person that wrote this article? And if that is not the case- how cowardly that they didn't have the balls to call a spade a spade, right from the get-go. They're chief'in bro! Nobody is freakin' power-hitting some tobacco- they're rippin' herb...plain and simple.
yous Ig-nurnt
Do you know how much weed it would take to fill the bowl of a hookah? You're an idiot – no pot smoker would waste their weed in a hookah. It legitimately IS tobacco, and – of course – hookah bars do not lace the tobacco with other drugs.
Mike Smith, there are hookah bars where it really is just an herbal blend, no weed. If that were the case, I'd be all over it. I've partook at a few different ones and it's not weed. That's not to say someone can't drop a bud in there for a laugh, but I really doubt establishments in most states will let that fly for very long if that was their primary clientele. I think they are kind of funny in a way, but to each their own.
hey now, I owned a hookah for about 8 years – gave it away when I moved across the country. I had packed it countless times when large groups were over and you're right, it used to hold about an 8th. We used to need a torch to get it started and a heating rock to keep it going. That was all I primarily used it for. The same with. um, water pipes – they even came with tobacco and it never occurred to me to actually use it for that. When moving to the midwest from the east coast, legit use of hookah by people of college age was kind of funny to me. I had assumed it was similar to kids drinking ginger ale when they really wanted a beer, but later saw that it was just a thing and was earnest. Mike sounded like he just hadn't experienced first-hand the hookah bars and bars/restaurants with a hookah (sounds like there shouldn't be a difference, but there is) but, like Mike, you also sound like you've just not experienced something different than what you know.
Not likely. You can smell pot smoke in a room full of hookah smoke, no way any bar owner would allow that. And why use one at home? Maybe mix it up with tobacco, but no one uses hookahs just to smoke pot, it's not economical.
Yes, we DO smoke tobacco in a hookah... facts are facts.
you are wrong. In the hookah bar, it is tabaco. Now at home I cant speculate on that, except to say that I smoked mmj ONCE from a hookah and felt like I would d-i-e.
@hey now uhm yes they would especially if theyre planning a party.
seriously – U have had too much... U'r a complete tard.
In the 60's we smoked weed in hookah's, it depends on the type of hookah, some have smaller bowls. In fact, back then I never saw anyone smoke anything other than pot in a hookah. I think they use them to smoke opium in India. In the opium dens.
It's called Shisha, and as far as I know, nobody would fill an entire bowl with marijuana.
cant smoke anything easily out of a hookah. downtown are they smokeing apple peels because i have tried the turkish tobacco in mine and i am not impressed. the bowl needs to be lit with a blow torch and then keep it going like a smokestack until your done...koff koff
That is way they use charcoal wafers. Not safe but keeps it lit. Enjoy
You need to buy charcoal lol.
Use the special charcoal for hookah... and NOT BBQ briquets (seriously, some people think that using BBQ charcoal is okay... BLECH!!!). The best tobaccos aren't Turkish... try Egyptian or Saudi brands.
Wrap tin foil around the bowl, about 6 inches high, and close the tin foil in toward the top. It will limit the air coming in through the top and keep the heat in. It will burn the shisha much faster but the smoke will be thick and it will keep going without effort.
Just another example of CNN and the liberal bias demonizing an act of freedom.
Everyone knows smoking anything is dangerous for your health. Choosing to do so anyway is what we call freedom (you pink-o- commie bestards)
Why not just keep ur opinions to yourselves.
Oh wait... better yet suggest a ballot measure to tax hookah lounges out of business. Then when it does not pass just say "uhm we need to count more votes"
FREEDOM PEOPLE
I find it funny you, who claim to be a republican and right winged id assume are supporting an Arabic/muslim hobby.
No one is talking about taxing hookahs. CNN is doing an important thing by informing people about the risks, because most people don't realize it's practically the same as smoking cigarettes.
You, sir, are the biased idiot here, not the author of this article.
I find it funny you are suggesting this is just another Liberal demonizing attack on freedom. Much like your demonizing attack on pot, marriage and woman's health.
The irony of talking about freedom and in the same breath telling people to keep their opinions to themselves.
Liberals and Conservatives are both staunch opponents of personal freedom, and to that extent, are both swine.
you do know that the very definition of "liberal it to alow all forms of freedom. It is not the liberals who are out to get people. And look who owns cnn you d-bag, he is a hard core repub-a-t-a-r-a-r-d as you can be. Learn to research before you speak.
Hey, if you want to kill yourself that's your business. I'm a liberal but I'd have no problem with that. It's called natural selection. People that are stupid enough to suck smoke and gas from a burning weed into their lungs for most of their life will hopefully die young and not pass on their stupidity genes. The human race will be better for it.
The difference between cigarettes and hookah is that hookah isn't smoked as often as cigarettes. It's a social thing. It's something most people do irregularly, occasionally. Although one hookah session delivers twice the nicotine as a cigarette, people generally aren't too concerned with the idea of smoking 2 cigarettes a week.
You should read more, one session also has 100X the smoke 40x the tar and 10x the carbon monoxide. Half the high from smoking a hookah is hypoxia from carbon monoxide poisoning.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRzpp8UQcBk
Not to mention all the germs the dirty ba$tards left on the moth piece before you started sucking.
Uh they give you free plastic mouth tip when you go to hookah bars and clean the hose each session
look at the pic, you ta rd. They give you a disposible mouth piece, and a fresh hose to each customer. Its more sterile then most glasses at most bars in america.
Lol, yea the person that wrote this article really doesn't know alot about hookah smoking. You don't burn and smoke the tobacco directly. Its made with fruit extract and molasses coated tobacco, so its more of a vapor from that than the tobacco its self. I think this is just another biased article attacking a form of smoking.
we smoke POT in our hookah......so there is no bad chemicals coming to us........
Actually contrary to popular belief, even normal tobacco has bad chemicals in it and pot actually worse chemicals that tobacco, but neither in it's purest form are as bad as cigarettes which have a lot of additives.
Lot of misconceptions here.
First of all, hookah is absolutely 100% tobacco. When I was in college we used to pack it ourselves and smoke.
Any respectable hookah bar will give you a disposable plastic tip to put on the pipe so you don't spread germs.
That said, I probably smoked maybe 3-4 times a year. Not particularly concerned with those health affects. Its a social thing, we do it with a bunch of friends. I definitely smoked more in high school like the article said, when we couldn't go to bars
Stick to the bath salts kids.
I hope you are not serious man
His serious... I've tried bath salts as a pre-workout. I had hulk capability. Gd stuff..
That's because Hookahs are for smoking hash, which has much less tar, stupid.
~Age is just a number for us , My husband and i both think so..
He is almost 11year older than me .i met him via ~【boomermingle.℃om 】
Lol, yea the person that wrote this article really doesn't know alot about hookah smoking. You don't burn and smoke the tobacco directly. Its made with fruit extract and molasses coated tobacco, so its more of a vapor from that than the tobacco its self. I think this is just another biased article attacking a form of smoking.
So you're saying that inhaling this smoke is perfectly harmless? Awesome! Now can I ride your unicorn?
Hookah is so freakin' lame and pretentious. It's on the same level as going to a Starbucks to read your 5-inch thick novel.
What if my novel is 5 megabytes thick?
Back in my teens we called it a bong. There were many types of bongs... some simple and some elaborate. Hookah is just a bong in it's more elaborate form. As for smoking ANYTHING, it isn't good for your lungs. If you are consuming weed, grind it up in your coffee grinder and then put it in a cake or brownie mix and consume it that way. Just make sure you drink alot of water with it. The stomach is much more efficient in processing weed than your lungs are anyway. And you get to live longer. Lungs don't like smoke. As for tobacco, I wouldn't consume it in any form. Not healthy. 'Socialize' instead with a few beers and then take a taxi home. Safer.
Absolutely.
Hookahs have been around a lot longer than bongs, centuries. Tobacco isn't the problem, the chemicals are what kills. I grew my own tobacco and it was amazing. Not addictive, and totally different than smoking cigarettes. But nothing beats a nice reefer!
You ignorant t-u-r-d. Hookahs are the origonal "bong". They have been around for centuries. BWT, the term bong, comes from the phrase bong lasse, which is a tea made from mj, steamed milk and some spaces. It is indian, from the vally of the Hindu Kush, and has been drank for again centuries. Yes all you potheads out their weed comes from india (originally) but it grows everywhere outside the artic circles. So the more humans travled the more it spread.
I had my first hookah in Egypt, sitting at a beautiful hotel in Cairo, enjoying a hookah under the stars... pretty great stuff. Since returning to the USA, I enjoy the occasional hookah at home with friends about once a month or so. It's a very social thing.
can read more about this in novel - king of Bat'ha - and the sequel - Tales from the East.
Not smoke, Critters, not smoke.
http://www.smokerpipes.com for all your hookah needs.
http://www.smokerpipes.com hookah 101
I smoke Hookah all the time, and can't stand the smell of cigarettes. How is that so? Because Hookah tobacco isn't the same as a cigarette's nor a cigar's. I smoke the American StarBuz and it's awsome! My favorite flavours are either the Juava or the Orange Mint. Here is the HEALTHY WAY OF SMOKING HOOKAH: Don't inhale! Period. Just huff and puff. Fill your mouth with smoke and blow it out. Believe me, you'll enjoy it, taste it and it'll still give you brain that buzz! If you inhale it in your lungs, then yes, you're in serious trouble, because that stuff is too heavy.
I deep inhale, and my favorite flavors are apple and licorice.
So instead of lung cancer you'll get mouth cancer.
More proof that humans are inherently stupid.
and your part of the club smart pants
As long as it doesn't have all the added chemicals like cigarettes do, there is no problem. Tobacco is safe when used in moderation, it's the chemicals that kill you.
Not true. Most of what we know about the harms of tobacco is based on research examining the basic chemicals such as tar and carbon monoxide. We know a lot less about the additives put in from the tobacco companies.
So, we have enough information to know that smoking tobacco is dangerous APART FROM the harms of other chemicals.
Dave's not here!!
Hey I have an hooks at home in it we only put water tobacco and if u won't some flavor with the tobacco and some coils to light the tabacco thats all tobacco is in the it u can't take it out
I smoked hookah from time to time when I was stationed in Germany with some of my local national friends. He had his own hookah and sometimes we'd go to a hookah bar. Sure, apparently it's much worse than a single cigarette. Just don't do it every day. It's that simple. Once or twice a month is no biggie. Like drinking to the point of getting drunk is good for you either? It's not, but it's socially acceptable. Gripe about alcohol too or else stop whining about hookah smoking.
There's a time to smoke and there is a time to quit. You will know.
"1 in 3 college students has smoked hookah" – is a completely meaningless headline. Its like saying 1 of 3 college students have drunk from a glass. The missing and most important part is what was in the glass (Hookah).
"Smokers inhale twice the amount of nicotine in one hookah session as they do with a single cigarette" "one session (usually about 45 to 60 minutes)"....So it takes an half an hour of non-stop smoking of a hookah to get as much nicotine as a 1 minute cigarette? Doesn't seem that bad to me! Maybe the hookah can be a way for individuals to start cutting there addiction to cigarettes.
What they leave out in the article is that many of those impurities are filtered out by the water in the hookah.
They forgot to mention Tuberculosisas a danger. In Egypt, tuberculosis is spread through Hookah pipes.
Why do people have to smoke anything? Many people are attracted to hookah because they erroneously believe that all the bad parts of the tobacco are filtered out through the water in the bowl. Why not just sit around and socialize without the hookah or anything to smoke?
The hookah hose ends do have a phallic shape, so maybe there is some sort of repressed feelings among the hookah smokers.
Using a hookah is not good for you in the same way that drinking socially isn't god for you. Still, it is one of those things that are relaxing and are a better alternative than smoking a pack day, instead having a hookah session once or twice a week is much healthier.
I really wish my country wouldn't push the 'quit it all or die' mentality when it comes to tobacco usage. It doesn't even let people explore much safer alternatives to cigarettes like snus or nasal snuff because the medical community likes to lump them all in one big group.
Over 4,000 chemical substances are used in making different kinds of cigarettes and 69 of these are known to cause cancer. Other ingredients in cigarettes aside from those 69 substances may also cause other types of diseases. (http://ingredientsincigarettes.org) Obvious smoking hookah is bad for you, but to say burning the 3 ingredients (molasses, tobacco, and fruit) that are in Hookah tobacco gives you the same helping of chemicals as you get from inhaling cigarette smoke is completely ignorant. This article is horribly researched and is based on the assertions that show a clear lack of knowledge on the subject. I'd love to read this article if it used actual facts to back up the argument instead of hastily written judgements based on nothing. The articles here are usually fairly good....this one...well...
If you read the scientific literature (articles by folks like Primack or Eissenberg or Ward or Maziak), then you'll know that these statements are supported by the data currently available.
To: darryl & Juls1314
first Darryl "who claim to be a republican and right winged " When did i claim to be republicna or right winged? I vote libraterian (frustrated with R&D)
"Much like your demonizing attack on pot, marriage and woman's health." Im pro pot, pro gay marriage and pro planned parenthood.
If you are smoking anything, you are not a very intelligent person.
Please. Why so black and white CNN?
I bought my hookah for 50 bucks and it is 2.5 feet tall. I smoke perhaps once a month. It is more about the constant deep inhalations that mellows me out through slow controlled oxygen deprivation. I am not addicted, my life is not in shambles. I am just another 20 something ambitious professional that has found a way to slow down and learn to relax once in a while.
Also, the hookah I get is from a friend that mails it to me. It has no tar or addictive substances. It can be classified as "organic" even. It is merely ground tobacco and mashed fruits. I don't have an addictive personality, so I do everything in healthy moderation. I've even cut down on visits to cnn.com as I felt they were becoming detrimental to my health.
what is the source for the numbers? ( 100 times the smoke as a single cigarette, with 40 times the tar and 10 times the carbon monoxide.) bad cnn...
Seriously. I looked at that and thought "uuuuhhh.... it is leaves and mashed fruit/mint guys..."
The source is those many articles that have been published by researchers like Primack, Eissenberg, Ward, Maziak, etc. These numbers have been demonstrated repeatedly in the laboratory under different conditions.
@ woodgrain, same could be said about drinking.
Hookah doesn't necessarily imply tobacco. Many flavored Hookah choices are actually tobacco-less, so we can't necessarily imply that Hookah use is harmful. The dangers of tobacco are known, and we should be more careful in blindly putting Hookah into this category.
I agree with many other people when I say that the statistics for how terrible hookah is in this article is baseless. It has none of the chemicals in a cigarette and the relevant factor is the amount of tobacco smoked, not the time smoking. 100x the smoke of cigarettes is extremely misleading, but I'm not surprised as this will be another area the nanny state can ruin with their old pals at CNN.
Yawn, more attacks on vice. People are going to do things that are bad for our health, because most fun things are bad for our health – stop dreaming of a fairy-tale "safe" world, it isn't going to happen and if it did, you wouldn't want to live in it. 100 cigarettes is 2-3 days worth of smoking for most habitual smokers, and I don't know many hookah smokers who do it more than once a week, if that. And we realize it's still tobacco and has the same chemicals – we decide to sacrifice some health safety for pleasure. It's called personal choice – look into it sometime.
Also, it leaves out how often they smoke it. For example, I think I smoked from a hookah once or twice in college. I was not at a hookah bar every day. But if asked if I ever smoked from it I would say yes. If asked how often, it would say extremely rare. Thus, if you are concerned about health effects the question should also focus on how often the person smoke from a hookah, not whether or not they ever have.
Just out of curiosity... what exactly are you progressing to?
These Hooka lounges in San Diego are more like hangout spots to just relax after home few beers. It's the only thing open in this freakin City after 2am... As far as smoking goes, it's doesnt bother me if i'm chilling puffin and passin for 45mins... event if it's 100 times the smoke as a single cigarette, with 40 times the tar and 10 times the.... I'm making money baby! I luv this Country! USA
Its illegal to hit a hookah... you just have sex, pay, and leave. ; )
Do we really need another article that says that smoking is stupid? Let all those stupid enough to do this die of lung cancer and the problem will ultimately sort itself out.
If done correctly, you don't actually burn the tobacco, so it is not the same as smoking a cigarette. The idea is to have the charcoal heat the tobacco to deliver primarily a vaporizing effect. Vaporizing and burning are two extremely different things. Of course, people who are worried about dictating their Marxism can't be bothered with reality.
Nothing is being vaporized!
When you inhale, you also inhale the charcoal smoke. So you are absolutely inhaling harmful chemicals into your lungs every time you take a puff!
In college we made a homemade hookah. It was made from a (new) red gas jug. We turned the nozzle into the bowl and rigged 6 tubes to it. We also used weed, not tobacco. We named it the Fire Engine because it when you smoked out of it, it sounded like a truck engine (and it was red). It also required all 6 people to suck at the same time, which really got it bubbling.
If they are using tobacco, they get what they deserve. we never used tobacco.....
Smoking cannabis alone has never been shown to cause lung cancer. It has been know for a century that the tars in cannabis exceed that in tobacco. Scientist who have actually spent time in labs studying this on lab animals, have published reports in learned journals stating that cannabis has strong anti inflammatory properties which in fact stops cancer form developing in your lungs, and all other organs. Put a little tobacco in for a better hit, you will increase your chances of getting lung cancer because of the tars from the tobacco. The two in combo produce a synergistic effect which makes the tars in both plants far more carcinogenic. Unfortunately, too many marijuana smokers are either former cigarette smokers or combine both in their usage. Marijuana for scientific reasons should be legal, and for the same reasons tobacco should be illegal.