<p>I took a course from Mayo Clinic for being a Tobacco Treatment Specialist. It is sad to see the many ways BIG TOBACCO sucks in otherwise intelligent people with more & more ways to get hooked in their products, to replace their quitting, dead and dying “customers.”</p>
<p>Yes, they try to convince you that it’s SAFE & SOCIAL–as is the herpes and other nasty conditions you can get from sharing the pipe & water. The nicotine itself is highly addictive and has many nasty additives so that it will burn WHILE moist.</p>
<p>There are so many other and better ways of being social without harming your health and getting hooked on a nasty product that has no known health benefits but countless harms. It really saddens me that otherwise bright people are so often lured in by big tobacco in this way, as well as chew tobacco and snuz and their many other products, “to get a buzz.”</p>
<p>Nicotine affects the acetocholine receptors in your brain to give you a buzz. It doesn’t matter what form the nicotine is in, your brain reacts and increase the # of receptors, all of which crave more & more. It is a biochemical reaction. Folks on this forum are bright enough NOT to be brainwashed by BIG TOBACCO.</p>
<p>Geesh, not everyone who takes a drink becomes addicted to alcohol. For some it is social and occasional. Those who become addicted are predisposed. Same with hookah. It seems to be popular with college-aged kids for the “social” aspect of it. I’ve rarely seen adults sitting around a hookah bar.
I was a smoker for 20 yrs, quit 15 years ago. I hate the stuff now. But I don’t think hookah is going to change the world and make our youngsters smokers. This seems to be a cool and hip thing to do as every generation has had some sort of “thing” that they did. Relax people.</p>
<p>milkandsugar-I don’t think alcohol addiction only happens to “those people”. I used to think someone would need a predilection. Now I think it can happen to anyone given the right (wrong) conditions. There has been a question of a biological predisposition. I am willing to bet though that almost every one has some member of their family who is an alcoholic–if not first degree family, then second.</p>
<p>^agreed. But to say if you smoke hookah you are going to go out and start smoking cigarettes is really not so. It sounds like our parents in the 70’s. If you smoke marijuana, you are going to get hooked on heroin or harder drugs. But it turned out that wasn’t so. Some did, but the majority didn’t and it was just a passing social thing of the time…
Those who went on to harder drugs were going to anyway because of the right(wrong) conditions.</p>
<p>Or if you play an online game like World of Warcraft over the summer, you’ll get addicted and fail out of college. </p>
<p>The whole hookah thing is a little bit of a pain. It’s work, not like lighting up a cigarette. It’s a leap to suggest that fooling around with a hookah in a dorm or at a hookah bar is going to result in an addiction to tobacco, any more than having a beer at a college party or a local bar is going to result in alcoholism. Theoretically it’s possible, but it’s hard for a parent to maintain credibility by making those kinds of arguments.</p>
<p>It’s not just BIG TOBACCO. BIG PHARMA is in the game, too, putting their marketing clout behind selling the “benefits” of nicotine addiction. Tobacco and Pharma together pack a pretty impressive marketing clout.</p>
<p>I would suggest to those making the argument that “a lot of people smoke nicotine and don’t get adddicted”, that young people would probably have better odds of surviving a “fun and social” game of Russian Roulette. At least they have a five in six chances of winning that game.</p>
<p>The consequences of nicotine addiction are so devasting on so many levels that you have to be** complete moron **to ever run that risk and put the first dose of insecticide poison in your body. Especially considering the fact that there are no benefits; it doesn’t even give you a decent buzz. That’s the way the world is going to view you should you become addicted. Your family, friends, associates, and total strangers passing you huddled in doorway to stay out of the rain while getting your fix are going to look at you, wrinkle their noses, and think, “what a moron”. </p>
<p>I don’t think badly of nicotine addicts. I know the power of the physical addiction and the brain chemistry changes that demand the drug. I do think that any non-addict who makes the decision to use nicotine is a complete moron. I mean, really, that’s just stupid with a capital-S.</p>
<p>When hookah came up with my daughter, I told her to please smoke marijuana in the thing instead of tobacco.</p>
<p>I think that’s exaggerated, interested dad. I hate smoking / tobacco and don’t allow it in my house. I never smoked a cigarette in my life. But on a business trip to Saudi Arabia, I tried hookah because why not try a local custom. It actually was surprisingly pleasant, but it’s not like I came back here and started frequenting hookah bars. Some people have addictive personalities, but I wasn’t signing up for a lifetime of nicotine addiction by trying it, any more than I’m worried about becoming an alcoholic by having an occasional glass of wine.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that playing WoW hijacks and alters the receptors in the brain responsible for dopamine release and imprinting behavioral reward mechanisms. You analogy shows that you don’t understand nicotine addiction. The “habit” of smoking occurs because the nicotine changes the brain chemistry to prevent normal everyday things like warmth and food from triggering the neurochemical signals of comfort. For an nicotine addict’s hijacked brain, the only thing that can trigger that essential signalling is another dose of nicotine. </p>
<p>There has never been, nor will there ever be, any reason for people to inhale the smoke of burning tobacco leaves, except for the physical addiction to nicotine. All the alleged benefits are simply “junkie lies” of the same sort that a heroin addict might give to rationalize the use of heroin.</p>
<p>…You don’t have to get flavors with tobacco in them (Blueberry flavors tend to not have any tobacco). While the smoke is still harmful, there isn’t any nicotine. </p>
<p>People will smoke weed from hookas, but generally, they’ll use a bowl or something else instead because a hooka is more inconvenient to carry or move. </p>
<p>A lot of under 21 year olds (that I am friends with) will go to hooka bars just as 21+ will go to regular bars as a social thing to do.</p>
<p>I was Stupid with a capital S. But, I was also in the 6th grade and the perspective on smoking in 1965 was a bit different than it is today. Back then, people didn’t have to huddle in doorways to stay out of the rain like lepers to get their drug fix. There is nothing “cool” about being a nicotine junkie today. It’s a horrible way to live and then it kills you. Not to mention that it costs over $2500 to buy the seven thousand three hundred cigarettes the pack a day junkie needs every year.</p>
<p>To make the decision to become a smoker in 2011 is stupid beyond belief.</p>
<p>Good point lauren229, the hookah bars I know of in New York do not have tobacco because of the anti tobacco laws. They have herbal shisha that come in various flavors. We had an anniversary party at a club in NJ that had a Arabian nights theme and we and my guests were offered the availability of hookah and we were told that there was no tobacco in them. But we declined. Smoking isn’t good but it is not nicotine.</p>
<p>There is also that lovely soup that is being shared by all the others who are or have used the same hookah apparatus that is generally changed only at the end of their busy day that everyone is breathing as well, which can include lovely things including herpes and other communicable diseases, which no one else on this thread has addressed. Dopomine & acetocholine receptors are very powerful, which is what helps tobacco companies keep so many addicted, even when the nicotine addicts know intellectually how bad it is for their health and that of their loved ones who get exposed to 2nd-hand smoke.</p>
<p>^They have little plastic disposable tips you put on the end. Some people just share a tip which is not a lot better but you’re at least putting your mouth on something that everyone in the whole hookah bar has used. In many circles we all have our own tips as well. Not like it makes it a lot better but that’s not a huge issue I think.</p>
<p>It’s still the same brew that is being vaporized & you are still sharing the same viruses, even tho you have your individual tip. All the infectious disease docs I have spoken with cringe with this new way of spreading nasty infections. You may think you’re safe, but it’s just implied sanitation & you’re sharing much more than you imagine & intend.</p>