<p>An acquaintance told me that her father was always a very heavy smoker, and when she went away to college, she experienced nicotine withdrawal from the sudden absence of second-hand smoke. Is that really possible?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My guess is that the tobacco companies are probably waging an intense behind-the-scenes PR effort to publicize hookah smoking among young people. Paying to have it featured in movies, articles by PR writers in youth magazines, etc.</p>
<p>They know that their product is nicotine addiction and they really don’t care how they get you addicted. Every teenager or young adult they can get addicted is a potential customer for years. They have to get new addicts because their product kills one out of every two long-term users of their product.</p>
<p>The drug companies aren’t stupid, either. Why do you think they are working so hard to gain market share from the tobacco companies with their own drug-store nicotine delivery products? We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg here in the US with advertising about “COOL MINT FLAVOR” for nicotine gum. Advertising in other countries clearly shows these products being positioned, not as quitting aids, but as long-term alternatives to cigarettes. Do a search for “YouTube Nicorette Old Boy” to view an example of this advertising. You tell me, what exactly is Nicorette selling?</p>
<p>Notice that the drug companies never say anything bad about smoking in their advertising… kind of curious for a product ostensibly being sold to stop smoking. Instead, they present a narrative that quitting is impossbily difficult. It is obviously not impossibly difficult - there are 46 million ex-smokers in the United States, none of whom have superhuman willpower.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>True. But, if a young person smokes marijuana in the hookah, at least he or she has the option of quitting at any time. Get addicted to nicotine and that person may not quit smoking cigarettes for decades, if it doesn’t kill them first. Heroin and alcohol addiction combined don’t kill anywhere near the number of addicts each year as does smoking tobacco.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Maybe:</p>
<p>[Parental</a> Warning: Second-hand Smoke May Trigger Nicotine Dependence Symptoms In Kids](<a href=“http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080929123937.htm]Parental”>Parental Warning: Second-hand Smoke May Trigger Nicotine Dependence Symptoms In Kids | ScienceDaily)</p>
<p>Hookah is as addictive as any other tobacco product. It’s become wildly popular on college campuses because of this sort of misinformation. It’s not “safer” because of the water or because some of the chemical additives are missing. </p>
<p>If you wouldn’t buy a pack of cigarettes and smoke them, then you shouldn’t smoke hookah. It’s a more hip, more interesting way to do it–but the result is the same. </p>
<p>My son went to a hookah bar with a friend because the friend wanted to do that for his 18th birthday. He loved the Indian techno music playing and really enjoyed the environment because there are a lot of foreign students. I think the big attraction was that it was a privelege that came with turning 18, and it felt great to him to be able to be in this new night club sort of environment.</p>
<p>I probably didn’t handle it well, but I grew up with two serious tobacco addicts for parents, and watched my brother try to quit smoking for 20 years, so I freaked out about it. I hate the addiction factor. I hate seeing people who can’t live without it, spending money they don’t have, putting their children’s health at risk, and being so controlled by that addiction that they can’t escape from it. Nicotine addiction may be more acceptable than some other addictions, but I don’t feel any differently about that drug than any others. My mother had lung cancer. She also lost most of her teeth. I’ve seen where it leads, and it’s not good. </p>
<p>We talked a lot about it, but I knew that he was going to college soon and would have to decide for himself. I told him I respect his judgment, but he also needs to respect mine. </p>
<p>Hookah is the new “I only smoke at parties” or “I only smoke when I drink beer” way to hook new smokers. Don’t delude yourself.</p>
<p>
Funny, but when I think of hookah I have a mental image of a bunch of old men with nothing to do just sitting around together smoking and gossiping - hardly hip when you think about it.</p>
<p>Haha, I love it when people think it’s <em>bad</em> to smoke. Smoke gets into the lungs and kills the weaker lung cells, leaving a population that is on average stronger. These stronger cells divide and replenish the dead, making your lungs stronger overall. It’s basic natural selection. The only problem is when you smoke too much, like past the age of 35. Then the strong cells are too overpowered and divide too much, leading to lung cancer. Theyve done studies that proves all this.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>This is the some of the most ridiculous nonsense I’ve read on CC in a long time. Using this logic we could make ourselves smarter by injecting ourselves with neurotoxins to kill off the “weaker” brain cells.</p>
<p>LOL… biology isn’t always incredibly simple like that… I wish though!</p>
<p>Ehh, I like a little decadence in my life. The occasional Hookah is very relaxing and very fun with good friends. I love it and we have a few good hookah bars around. </p>
<p>Life is dangerous enough. If my occasional hookah smoking becomes what kills me, I’ll count myself lucky.</p>
<p>Though I don’t smoke (hookah or anything else) I’ve been to several hookah bars. The atmosphere is incredibly fun and relaxing, and it usually smells pretty good (as opposed to when people smoke cigarettes around me and I can’t stop coughing. Though I have no desire to actually smoke hookah because of the dangers, the atmosphere of the lounges keeps me going - I hang out with friends, get iced sweet tea, and enjoy the evening. That to me is the best part of hookah bars.</p>
<p>Hookah is just as bad as cigarettes; it contains as much or more nicotine, as well as tar. The water does not filter the smoke like many people think.</p>
<p>However, to say that kids should stay away from hookah unless they’re looking for long-term addiction is frankly stupid. Nicotine is an extremely addictive drug; but it takes more than the drug to create an addictive vehicle. For example, cigarettes are outrageously addictive (there was a statistic like 85% of teenagers who completely smoke more than 2 cigarettes become habitual smokers for at least some period of time), but cigars are much less so. This is due to different delivery pathways, different environmental smoking triggers, etc.</p>
<p>In the case of hookah, it is important to note that many of the people going to hookah bars actually don’t inhale the smoke but rather puff it. This almost completely removes the actual nicotine administration (the nicotine in hookah, unlike that in cigars, is badly absorbed by the mucosal membranes in the mouth), and makes it a much less addictive diversion - also much less harmful, since the risks associated with puffing smoke are much less than inhaling.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, hookah is not an insidious nicotine addiction vehicle. The kids going to hookah cafes aren’t this generation’s smokers getting their addiction on. Most of them go once in a long while to a hookah cafe, and don’t smoke outside of that. Few are addicted to nicotine. Many, in fact, don’t even smoke tobacco in the hookah pipes, but rather a similarly-flavored, nicotine-free herbal blend (required to even operate a hookah lounge in some states with strong anti-indoor tobacco smoking laws).</p>
<p>At the end of the day, OP, hookah’s not the best thing in the world. But it can be fun to hang out with friends, hookah lounges provide an interesting and cool place to do that, and it’s not going to turn you into a hollow-eyed nicotine addict. I would give it a try, personally. But listen to yourself first.</p>
<p>One other thing to think about is they don’t change the water in the Hookah bars often–perhaps once/day. You are sharing diseases with everyone else who has used that nasty water (& it is very nasty, especially by the end of the night). You can catch many very stubborn infections–mono, herpes, viruses and bacteria from the water alone!</p>
<p>A single hookah session has 36 times the tar of smoking a single cigarette.
It has 1.7 times the nicotine.
It has 8.4 times the carbon monoxide.
Sources: Shihedeh & Saleh (2005) Food & Chemical Toxicology Vol 43(5): 655-661
Djordjevic et al (2000) Journal of National Cancer Institute Vol 92: 106-111.</p>
<p>For more info on quitting, check out 1-800-QUIT-Now or [url=<a href=“http://www.smokefree.gov%5DSmokefree.gov%5B/url”>http://www.smokefree.gov]Smokefree.gov[/url</a>].</p>
<p>Hookah is just that latest “in” thing that Big Tobacco is using to lure ever younger smokers to replace those who die of nasty things like emphysema, lung cancer, chronic bronchitis. Smoking doesn’t kill quickly–it steals your breath and has you linger and feel as if you’re breathing through a coffee stirer for years and sometimes decades. Emphysema and chronic bronchitis together are the 4th leading cause of death in the US–mostly due to smoking. One person dies of COPD every 4 minutes in the US. By 2020, it will be the 3rd leading cause of death in the WORLD.</p>
<p>If you want more info about emphysema & chronic bronchitis, go to learnaboutcopd.org.</p>
<p>I can’t stand cigarettes, and was never very good at inhaling pot. My husband though works with some middle eastern grad students that bring a hookah to outdoor lab parties. I’ve tried it out and it’s much smoother than normal cigarettes. I don’t think I need to worry about addiction from a couple of puffs once a year, but I think going to a bar where there’s nothing much else to do is just asking for trouble.</p>
<p>You guys are fooling yourselves. I understand. A generation before you fooled themselves about cigarettes. Those were some of my exact thoughts in college. I can quit whenever I want to. A little bit won’t hurt me. I’d have to smoke past 30… yadda, yadda, yadda. Do you think your nicotine addiction is going to care about any of that? Mine didn’t.</p>
<p>Now, I go to concerts, see young people lighting up, and just shake my head. They have no idea how long they will probably have to suffer the ill-effects of nicotine addiction.</p>
<p>BTW, who would you guess arranged for the hookah product placement in Matrix Reloaded? Duped by big corportations into putting yourselves at risk of a lifelong drug addiction.</p>
<p>
That has to be one of the most ludicrous things I’ve read. More accurately you are selecting for cells that grow extra fast, i.e. cancer cells.</p>
<p>Apparently the group didn’t end up at the hookah bar for one reason or another.</p>
<p>I told them I’m always good for a trip to SF, but not if that’s what we’re doing when we get there.</p>
<p>interesteddad: The difference with cigarettes is that they are probably the most efficient addiction vehicle one could possibly design. Even hookah does not come close to matching the effectiveness of nicotine delivery one can achieve with a cigarette.</p>
<p>That said, while some people probably do unjustifiably downplay the risks of hookah, you are overstating them. The fact that you became addicted to nicotine does not mean every other person must inevitably become an addict as soon as they touch anything containing the substance. Like a former alcoholic, you come at this issue from a perspective where you cannot ever again consume nicotine without risking addiction. That is not the case for everyone.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Lung cancer is one of the “better” (or should we say “hipper”) ways to die from smoking. While gruesome, it at least has the advantage of killing your quickly. The chronic emphysemas are worse. Years connected to an oxygen tank, unable to breathe. </p>
<p>BTW, you are probably right that you won’t get addicted to nicotine from “a couple puffs a year”, but I can’t begin to tell you how many millions of cigarette smokers have uttered those famous last words. It’s not worth the risk. There is one simple 100% foolproof way to avoid nicotine addiction: never take a puff. Imagine how stupid you would feel if you found yourself addicted to nicotine and secretly smoking cigarettes? For what? A couple of puffs on a hookah? I know what I would tell those grad students to do with their tobacco.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Baloney. Anyone who inhales tobacco smoke is matching the effectiveness of a cigarette. If you don’t inhale, you are matching the effectiveness of a cigar.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There’s no other sane way to come at the issue. It might be different if here one single positive benefit from tobacco smoking, but there is not. So you have an activity that has zero positive benefits, a litany of negative repurcussions, and is one of the most addicitive drugs known to man. How can it possibly make any sense to advocate for anything but abstinence from nicotine? It’s just a simple cost/benefit analysis.</p>
<p>Give me one REAL benefit to smoking tobacco (not the BS reasons like “it relieves stress” or “it’s relaxing in a group”) and we’ll talk. You can’t come up with one. Trust me, people rationalizing their smoking a lot more than you have tried. Nobody has ever come up with one positive benefit.</p>