This issue has come up in conversation on multiple occasions in the last couple of weeks, as well as occasions in the last two years, and I feel a need to address it with the relevant research attached.
I am repeatedly surprised by the number of intelligent, educated people --- who know smoking is harmful and would never touch a cigarette --- who smoke hookah and think nothing of it. If you're a regular smoker, I'm not talking to you. This is directed at people who "know better" than to use tobacco in its more pedestrian forms, and yet show a wealth of ignorance and misinformation when it comes to more "exotic" forms. But smoke is smoke, and tobacco is tobacco.
Let's address the misconceptions each in turn:
1.
Shisha tobacco doesn't have any nicotine or tar, or those nasty additives in cigarettes.
Wrong: tobacco contains nicotine in any form, including chewing tobacco. Nicotine, however it is delivered, is extremely addictive. As for tar,
any smoke contains tar because it
is tar. Tar is the particulate matter (as opposed to gas) that you can actually see, which makes up the smoke --- it's just called tar when it's been deposited in your lungs. Tar contains thousands of chemical compounds, hundreds of which are toxic and/or carcinogenic (you know this already), and tar is what makes you sick and kills you. Many have used herbal substitutes for tobacco (such as Soex), most often to get around indoor smoking bans, claiming that they have none of the negative effects of tobacco. While it's true that herbal substitutes contain no nicotine, they deliver every bit as much tar as tobacco does, simply because all smoke is particulate matter --- chemically altered and discharged by burning/heating, and suspended in air. Herbal smoke will give you cancer just as easily as tobacco smoke.
What's more, a
WHO study and several independent university studies have shown that in one hookah session, a smoker inhales the same volume of smoke that they would get from 100-200 cigarettes. This is because the smoke is less irritating (due to being cooled by the water) and therefore the smoker inhales far more deeply than they would from a cigarette --- as well spending much longer smoking, and inhaling much more second-hand smoke. Hookah has the reputation of being "easy on virgin lungs", but this is a heat issue only. Commensurate with the volume of smoke, a hookah session will deposit the equivalent tar of 100-200 cigarettes in the lungs, regardless of what is being smoked.
2.
But hookah smoke is filtered by the water.Wrong: studies show that the water has no effect on the smoke other than to cool it down, enabling deeper drags. This makes sense because as the bubbles pass through the water, there is only contact on their outer perimeter, so the smoke inside the bubbles is untouched. Furthermore, the non-particulate, toxic gases in hookah smoke (most notably, carbon monoxide and cyanide gas) are also unaffected and delivered at full strength.
3.
But the shisha isn't burned, it's cooked by the charcoal, so it's not as bad.Wrong: if something is heated hot enough that it gives off smoke, chemical changes are occurring --- the same changes as if it was burned directly. Heat causes these reactions, not "fire." The smoke from the cooked shisha has all the same compounds in it as cigarette smoke, and many more. Furthermore, the burning charcoal that heats the shisha gives off carcinogens and toxic gases of its own, which only compound the damage done by the actual shisha smoke. This is probably why the measured carbon monoxide in hookah smokers is much higher than even pack-a-day cigarette smokers.
4.
But the smoke is just different, it's sweet, and doesn't feel harsh to me. It's relaxing.Wrong: shisha is plain tobacco, soaked in molasses and fruit pulp. So not only are you inhaling the tar of at least 100 cigarettes, plus nicotine and charcoal burn-off, you're inhaling burning sugar and fruit matter, and artificial flavorings. These additions to the tobacco only serve to mask its acrid smell and taste, creating an illusion of safety. The total effect is that there is a lot more muck in the smoke than even in cigarette smoke, and you're getting a lot more of it.
As to the claim that hookah is "chill" or "relaxing": nicotine is a stimulant. It makes people feel "relaxed" because it raises the level of arousal of their autonomic nervous system (ANS), giving them a feeling of being empowered and in control. Just because it doesn't give a "buzz" is not reason to believe that it isn't active on the nervous system. This claimed sense of "relaxation" is most likely related to the drug effects of nicotine.
----
All of the above information is pulled from research which is listed at the bottom of this post. I encourage you to read through it if you have the interest. From numerous studies, we know that even the smallest tobacco exposure is irreversibly damaging --- I don't need to rehash that here. There is
no such thing as responsibly moderate consumption. I cannot stress this enough. Every time you do this, you permanently damage yourself. The damage may be small, but it is irreversible.
Hookah is a silly trend that will probably pass in a couple of years. Still, that doesn't negate the damage that it is doing right now to ignorant young people, who are all too willing to be duped by marketing hype and misinformation. Concentrating and inhaling known toxins and carcinogens just doesn't make rational sense. Yet hookah gratifies that singular trait of people our age --- the feeling of invincibility and the willful ignorance of our mortality. It lets people get lost in a fog of the senses, abandon themselves to something that seems at once sensually close and exotically foreign. But it's the same poison repackaged to gratify our culture-consuming eyes. Exalting the body does not mean drowning it in short-lived and harmful pleasures --- in so doing, we treat it as a thing disposable and cast it aside. Exalting sensual pleasure does not exalt the body. When we care for the body and preserve it, train it and strengthen it, and give it up for a higher purpose --- this is exalting to the body.
I'll lay my cards on the table here: I watched three grandparents die horrible, painful deaths because of tobacco use. I have very little patience with a trend that is just another disguise for the same old life-destroying product. Admittedly, I would like nothing more than to see the entire tobacco industry in utter ruin. But this doesn't come from some kind of political affiliation, or abstract know-it-all attitude, or a desire to police people's decisions. It comes from seeing, repeatedly, the slow suffering and unbelievable pain that terminal lung cancer victims endure. Earlier generations made this costly mistake because they were ignorant of the danger, but we are not. And if we gloss over the facts to gratify our fleeting pleasures or a desire to be cool or adventurous, we show enormous disrespect to the dead and their suffering.
----
A few references, in chronological order with most recent first:
ABC News: Hookahs No Safe AlternativeUNT Daily: Hookah trendy, not as safe as some may thinkABC7 News.com: U.C. Berkeley Study shows the dangers of hookahsLetter from Berkeley Pub. Health prof, JAMA -- Exhaled Carbon Monoxide With Waterpipe Use in US Students, January 2, 2008, El-Nachef and Hammond 299 (1): 36US News and World Report: The Rising Allure—and Danger—of HookahHealthDay: Hookah Smoking as Tough on Lungs as CigarettesMedical News Today: Shisha Smoking Is More Harmful Than CigarettesAFP: Shisha smoking is more harmful than cigarettes: reportNewsDaily: Water pipe use as addictive as smokingMedical News Today: Evidence Suggests That Waterpipe Smoking Is Not A Safe AlternativeNew York Times: The Claim - Hookahs Are Safer Than Cigarettes?Times of India: Is hookah smoking safer than cigarettes?Brunei: Shisha More HarmfulUnited Press International: Beware the hookahNY Daily News: Water pipes have the same dangers as cigarettes, experts warnThe Boston Globe: Smoke alarmCBS2 Chicago: Trendy Hookah Lounges Have Hidden RisksDaily News Egypt: Hubble bubble points to toil and troubleClickwalla.com: Shisha 200 times worse than a cigarette, say Middle East expertsAmerican Lung Association: Trend Alert -- Waterpipes.pdfPR Newswire: Hookah Use Carries Many of the Same Health Risks as Cigarette SmokingScience Daily: Hold The Hookah --- Researcher Warns Against Trendy Tobacco UseScience Daily: Avoid The Hookah And Save Your TeethAlso:
Another blog post along these lines |
And anotherTobacco.orgWHO Report (linked above)Labels: Essay
Many of you know how deeply attached I am to the music of Stars of the Lid. It's shown quite dramatically in my play counts, and this blog is even titled after one of their compositions. They are performing live at St. Mary's Church on May 3rd. I can't recommend this highly enough --- I had assumed (as did many others) that I would never have an opportunity to see SOTL in person, but what a gift!
