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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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Get a behind-the-scenes look at the latest stories from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and the CNN Medical Unit producers. They'll share news and views on health and medical trends - info that will help you take better care of yourself and the people you love.
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In other words: smoking will still kill you. Derp.
But I don't smoke?
I am fairly well versed on the damaging effects of smoking cigarettes, but I have chose not to pay as much attention to these warning than I probably should. I have been smoking 1 o 2 packs of cigarettes for he past 60 years. I enjoy smoking. I am now 81 and in perfect health. I do pay attention to health and safety warnings and instructions, such as: I do a bit of painting from time to time, the labels on my paint cans instruct me not to take internally, which I accordingly do not do. I also heed the warning not to stand on the top of my stepladder.
Tobacco? Oh, that's what those things were invented for. We the "other" use also provides sweet smelling smoke with hours of relaxation.
The "other" use doesn't give you cancer either, which is pretty nice.
If you smoke anything, you potentially destroy your lungs. I smoke cigarettes and have less problems than my [very few] friends who are potheads (sure, it's cure when you guys avoid saying what you're doing). It's all in a case-by-case basis. Can't really say Smoking the 'other' (scoff) stuff is free of worry. It's like saying which is more dangerous, guns or knives? Both can kill you, it just depends on the case and how it's being used. You're never free from side effects, don't kid yourself.
[I think he meant 'Cute', but I tend to agree] Doesn't matter what you smoke, it all harms your body in some way.
He's right
http://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20120103/marijuana-smoking-not-linked_to-chronic-breathing-problems
I've tried hooka a few times but it wasn't addictive for me. Ya, I went when I was under 21 because I couldn't go to bars and neither could my friends. Not all of us do deep inhales like this story is stating. There's also sashimi which is a lighter form of tabacco that doesn't have all the harsh chemicals. That's what they use around here. All of the people I know play it off as nothing big and honestly none of us are addicted.
Tried it, did notthing for me, and quit.
Sashimi? You smoked raw fish?
Shisha*
It's less addictive because it has a much lower nicotine concentration, I've literally seen people light up a cigarette while smoking a hookah, just because they enjoyed the flavor of the hookah, but it wasn't providing them with enough nicotine.
"Unfortunately, smoking hookah delivers the same chemical compounds as smoking a cigarette."
Not my hookah, muhuuhahahaha.
Zing!
The hookah was first used to smoke hasish from their beginning... Btw that is concentrated cannabis resins.
If only we were still allowed to do that in public.
And what a wonderful thing it is! Why waste a good pipe smoke of tobacco?
No it was first used to smoke opium.
There is no society on earth that does not us some form of mind altering drugs, plants, or herbs.
My son and his Army battle buddies smoked a lot of hookah in Iraq and continued when they returned to Germany. I thought it was just a mid-east thing, but apparently not. At least these guys aren't smoking a couple packs a day like we did when I was a Marine. I quit not long after I got out of the service, but regret ever picking them up.
They kind of still are smoking a couple packs just in a different format: "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"
Thing is, for people I know at least, it's not like smoking cigarettes every day. My friends and I smoke hookah maybe once every 2-3 months. I imagine a pack once every 2-3 months wouldn't kill you either. it's the regular use and the build up that gets you.
I am seeing shops spring up selling "pure" tobacco and wonder if that is not somehow safer than the stuff in a Marley? I mean the tobacco companies load their products with all manner of terrible stuff, I guess to increase the addictive qualities and act as preservatives? Does pure tobacco even come close to the danger of man-manipulated tobacco?
Hookah or rolled in a paper, the pure stuff seems that it would be safer, better tasting and more satisfying? I quit ciggys 20 years ago and since have become hyper sensitive to the smell. I find that the pure tobacco smokes do NOT bother me in the same way and I assume it's the additives that offend me. Hookah makes sense even though one gets more of what one smokes for in less time. It's a social thing and seems like fun.
so in other words this a bigger more expensive version of what we use to cal a "BONG" back in the day when it was used for the other kind of tobacco that shall we say was not legal. but hey it provided a more relaxing feeling than smoking cigarettes to!
too*
Thank you grammar Nazi!
Sounds kind of Nancy-ish to me – smoke a cigar and be a man
Cigars are nancy-ish, smoke a corn cob pipe.
Rock likes the feel of a big johnson in his mouth, don"t you Rock?
"hipsters are stupid hypocrites". there, now you dont need to read the article.
You should never smoke tobacco from a hookah...only cannabis, which will not give you cancer.
No one: you will be getting a package soon addressed to you regarding natural selection.
I have a hooka smoking catepillar that talks to me... Honestly I would like to see the study on water filtration vs no filter and how much tar and junk is taken out. I am a glass snob though...
Did you read the article at all? 40X the tar and 10X the CO. Can you read?
Another words, where there is a vice, there are people wanting to do it... Duh...
I love the belly dancers.
Still trying to push the old "snake oil" argument. This has been debunked so much, this Dr. should lose their license fo verbal stupidity. Hey, Doc! Tell us the morbidity rate of hookah smoking. We'll wait. Go on. Look it up. It's not a big number. The Doc must be a vet. He's talking like a parrot!
Silly reporters....only idiots use hookahs for tobacco!!!!
1 of 3 huh.....evidently they don't count those college students smoking NON tobacco products in these because if they did that number would be more like 3 of 5 me thinks.
Yet another smoking article about hookah that has no basis in actual research. The issue with all of these articles with regard to hookah, is that they use a volumetric comparison between the smoke from hookah and smoke from a cigarette. In actuality, the two are as similar as apples and oranges. When you smoke a cigarette you are using direct ember contact with tobacco creating much higher operating temperatures. These higher temperatures vaporize the vast majority of carcinogens and tar found in tobacco. Hookah uses indirect ember contact to heat the tobacco. The coals used to heat the tobacco are separated by a layer of aluminum foil and indirectly warm the tobacco. The only thing you are smoking is vaporized nicotine that has dissociated into the glycerin as well as basic aromatics that give it the flavor. The reduction in heat with hookah is enough to vaporize the glycerin in which the hookah tobacco is immersed, but not reach vaporization temperatures for ~ 90% of carcinogens and tar found in cigarette smoke. The argument that our esteemed doctor is making in his most recent article is essentially this: "cigarettes produce 1L of smoke and hookah produces 100L of smoke, therefore hookah is 100x more dangerous then cigarettes." While volumetrically this is true, on an analysis of the actual components within hookah smoke, one will ascertain that hookah smoke is much safer. This is not to safe the smoking in any form is advantageous for your health but rather individuals should be aloud to make an informed decision rather then one based on manipulated results and fear. While it seems that basic math was a part of this doctor’s general education, apparently the principles behind the basic scientific method were never taught. I would expect FOX to republish an article like this, but I expected more from CNN. At the very least I assumed CNN had someone with a PhD on staff to check scientific claims.
Thank you for saving me the time of typing all that. You are quite right, sir or ma'am. Clearly CNN needs to do more research into this laughably inaccurate article.
Unfortunately, the article itself had 1/10th the amount of information as the post by @Chemical Engineer.
I just glossed over the 100X the smoke comment in the article (superficially seeming to me like an apples & oranges comparison), but what about the 40X the tar and 10X the carbon monoxide? Granted, a cigarette smoker in the same social setting as the hookah bar might smoke 5 or so cigarettes in the same 45-60 minute hookah session time (I'm guessing), so you're looking at 8X the amount of tar and 2X the amount of carbon monoxide smoking cigarettes compared with hookah. As for the nicotine and other dangerous chemicals that each smoke delivers, it needs to be in the article. Had they run this "post" by a competent science editor, it probably wouldn't have been so uninformative.
They also have tabaccoless hookah if you're concerned
*tobaccoless
Humans are so ignorant.
This article doesn't even mention how easy it is to get oral herpes from doing Hookah.
There is no tar in shisha/hookah. Unless you're actually BURNING the tobacco. If you're doing it right, you're getting vapor from the heating of the honey/molasses/glycerin mixture that flavors the tobacco. Hell, if you're that in a twist over it, smoke the shisha stones, which is ROCKS soaked in the same solution. You're not going to burn stones (legitimate river stones!) and get tar.
My girlfriend just got done smoking my hookah. Loved every second.
Well you can't carry a hookah in your purse or shirt pocket and light up whenever you feel the urge!
now you can http://www.amazon.com/Premium-Portable-Charcoal-Walking-Listing/dp/B003IH718Q
Genius! What an unemployed rocket scientist can accomplish!
put some chronic in there and we are in business
Another vice for a largely brain-dead generation.
The hookah's not an Apple product–so why is CNN reporting on it?
There must be a lull in Apple press releases and they need to fill column inches.They should have surveyed Mac and Windows users to report their hookah smoking habits...
The iPot?
and dr. gupta's lookin' pretty mellow in that picture at the top of the screen....
My nephew began smoking hookah about a year ago. In just that short amount of time, he has become a gaunt, pale distortion of the athletic teenager he was. Even his girlfriend, another hookah smoker, has begun to worry about him. He's developed anemia, a chronic cough, and insomnia. He gets severe headaches if he is has to spend a day away from it, so he bought additional hookahs to keep at the homes of some of his friends for when he visits. He refuses to listen to suggestions that it MIGHT be all his his smoking that is making him ill. He insists that it's completely safe. We are honestly concerned about his well being, but as hookah is legal and he pays for it himself, there isn't much we can do but watch him wasting away and hope he'll come to his senses soon.
Lies! Your nephew is smoking meph not hookah.
Ya...it does sound like meth not tobacco unless he is lacing it.
Honestly, I do believe that your nephew is using dangerous drugs. You need to intervene before he ruins his life.
I am of middle eastern descent and I have been smoking hooka for a VERY long time and have been around A LOT of people who smoke hooka every day (for years) and have never heard of these symptoms.
I think your nephew is in major trouble, meth addictions are UGLY.
All of the above are extremely correct. Those effects are not the effects of shisha alone, and are definitely something much more dangerous. Hookah is a smoking tool, and just because it's a hookah does not mean that only shisha can be or is being smoked out of it.
If those effects truly came from smoking out of a hookah, then something is not right, and it is very likely that he is smoking something illegal and very harmful out of it, using the fact that it's a hookah and the notion that normally only shisha is smoked out of a hookah as a defense against questioning.
Look into it.
Personally I wonder what batch they were smoking, you can smoke pure tobacco too which has no tar (straight off the fields) which will be better for you than smoking a common cig...and you can get hooka shisha that has only the plant and flavoring. If you smoke the same crap you are going to get the same crappy results.
Last week I read about another 'study' that discovered 1 in 3 sleepwalk. I wonder if the 1 is the same 1 that smokes hookah.
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I know exactly what is in my sisha–and I don't care. Don't blow your hot air at me, and I won't blow my smoke at you. Srsly. Kthxbi.
This article is a great example of the garbage being fed to us by our media! how about you do some original confirmed research of the way hookah smokers actually smoke? I'm so tired of seeing that same WHO study regurgitated over and over when the study was done with a smoking machine that constantly pulls air through. Not to mention coals containing kerosene (quality coals are 100% coconut shell) and unsavory tobacco of a very low quality. Write what you know CNN, lets see some articles on corrupt news pundits and making a profit on the lowering of Americans IQs.
Shisha tobacco is 100% free of tar, contains only .5% nicotine (compared to up to 2-4% in most cigarettes, filters through water, and-here's the kicker folks- NEVER incinerates the tobacco. A Hookah does not 'burn' tobacco, it creates the same situation as smoldering. The coal heats the tobacco, not burns it, to a high enough temperature that it produces a vapor. carcinogens are released based on temperature and incineration/combustion, the temperature of a cigarette burning is more than twice that of a hookah in use, thus, off the bat potentially less harmful in the carcinogen realm. This article is the perfect example of terrible journalism and a complete lack of research. Hell, the box the tobacco comes in says "0.0% tar" directly on it.
I love how the media completely overlooks the facts behind the hookah.
First off, no, a hookah does NOT produce tar. Tar is produced when tobacco is burned, if I recall correctly, at 800 degrees F. A hookah does not burn tobacco, it simmers, or cooks it, in the juices that it is soaked in, and reaches a max temperature (Varying from coal types) from 200-400 at idle, and 500-600 when taking a drag.
Second off, the amount of nicotine produced from shisha is far less than what people believe. It depends upon the shisha producer, but most shisha tobacco contains washed tobacco, which has a nicotine content of .05% per gram of tobacco. Some contain unwashed which has a .5% per gram. Considering that most people smoke a pack of cigarretes a day with around 20 in each pack. Generally a cigarrette has around .8 grams of tobacco (and other chemicals). That is a total of 16 grams with .5% nicotine in it. Generally a hookah smoker has one hour long session with 20-30 grams, I'll use 25 as a base. 25 grams of .05% nicotine. In numbers, cigarettes are at 8 while hookah is at 1.25.
Please people, before you make articles on hookah, please do some actual research instead of listening to the lies that the media is using to make it seem more harmful than it really is. No, I'm not saying it is healthy, nothing you smoke is... but some people say that smoking one bowl of hookah is like smoking one hundred cigarettes.
Let me sit down and enjoy my single bowl of hookah for an hour, and have another smoke one hundred cigarettes, and we'll see whos sick by the end of it.
Also, I forgot to mention that most of the smoke from a hookah comes from 100% natural vegetable glycerine, the same stuff that is used in movies instead of dry ice to make a breatheable fog that will not harm you.
I own and smoke out of a hookah. Yes, it is bad for you, and shisha is just the more proper name for the flavored tobacco, not something else entirely. This isn't from any research, but what I can deduce from empirical evidence is that shisha contains less nicotine, or at least lessens its effects, as I am not addicted at all, nor is anyone I know addicted in any way (that may of course not be true for everyone). The things that the article leaves out about shisha is that most sessions involve multiple people who do not constantly pull on the hose (i.e. smoke from it), so the individual intake is less than what the actual hookah produces. Also, hookah smoking is far less frequent than cigarette smoking. At least personally, the most frequent I smoke is about once a week.
It is true that a lot of the negative aspects are overlooked because the water-filtered smoke does not feel harsh or unhealthy, and smoking any kind of tobacco is still unhealthy, but there are still numerous factors that make it far less hazardous in both long-term and short-term ramifications. Also, as has been mentioned previously, the equipment that goes into preparing a hookah varies, as tobacco and nicotine-free shisha is on the market, and the coals which probably produced a substantial amount of chemicals that they measured in this article tend to be made of less dangerous materials (i.e. 100% coconut) if they are of any actual quality.
I don't smoke cigarettes, but hookah has been a very pleasant and relaxing way to spend a nice quiet evening with my friends. When it comes down to it, hookah is more about the pleasant and social atmosphere it creates than it is about the actual smoking of tobacco.
Also, see other comments for more precise reasons why shisha is not as bad as cigarettes (e.g. No tar, tobacco not burned directly, less nicotine, more natural ingredients, etc.).
Again, still tobacco, so still not necessarily good, but way less of a big deal than most other smoking products.
Speaking of hookah check out a recently made comedy film on the subject:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARczJkBwYGE
This article is totally biased against tobacco use period i dont smoke cigarettes i just smoke hookah, and the hookah tobacco (shisha) is a washed form of tobacco and doesnt have all the added chemicals that cigarettes you buy at the store have yes it still has nicotine but that comes naturally from the tobacco plant itselt. This is just another temp by the news media to paint hookah smoking in a bad light, And i know smoking anything has the potential to damage to your body but it all comes down to one point i like the things that i like and who has the right to tell me what i can and cant do in a so called "free" country.
Harmful effects of hookah tobacco if can be reduced,people can experience a better smoke than cigarettes.
Harmful effects of hookah tobacco, if can be reduced,people can experience a better smoke than cigarettes.
Should hookah shisha be banned?
its crazyy how noboy talkes about the NON tobacco shisha. which are tobacco free! You could buy that instead. i did.
Some please tell me is it normal to smoke shisha than all of a sudden start feeling hot and sweaty. Feeling sick but not throwing up? My hearing was also gone a bit weird. Felt like fainting but didn't. Anyone know what this might be? I'm not a regular shisha smoker though.
I've read in several other articles that 45-60 min of shisha smoking is only equivalent to the tar and nicotine/toxins as 2.5 cigarettes.
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