Just How Dangerous is Hookah?

[CCC88]

<p>If you smoke a hookah several times daily for years on end, yes, you may get cancer. But once in a blue moon? No. Chronic smoking related diseases result from chronic smoking for years on end, not one Saturday a month at a hookah bar.</p>

[a_milli]

<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.

</p>

<p>it’s fun and enjoyable? or am I imagining the enormous dopamine cascade?</p>

[phishfan0969]

<p>LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL</p>

<p>I owned a hookah at age 14.</p>

[interesteddad]

<p>

Chronic smoking related diseases result from chronic smoking for years on end, not one Saturday a month at a hookah bar.

</p>

<p>Ah, the old “I’m just a social smoker, I can quit whenever I want to” gambit. It works for some people. Others end up addicted. Still others delude themselves, completely addicted, and still believing they could quit.</p>

<p>That’s OK. Everyone’s gotta find out for themselves. BTW, for those saying that it’s no worse than cigar smoking, keep in mind that cigar smokers are twice as likely to become cigarette smokers as the general population. It’s Russian roulette.</p>

[Booklady]

<p>The only thing I associate with a hookah is the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland. That said, I’m grateful for the information here, particularly from interesteddad, and will pass it along to my children.</p>

[gdorf]

<p>

@interesteddad

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>Incorrect. Tobacco smoke is not all the same; in the case of cigarettes the makeup of the tobacco is specifically designed to give the best possible delivery of nicotine (this is part of longstanding efforts by tobacco companies to make their products as addictive as possible). The same is not necessarily true of hookah tobacco - and it shows. I don’t know if you’ve ever smoked hookah, but having smoked both before (and being a person not addicted to nicotine, who is therefore sensitive to the magnitude of its effects) I can confidently say that there is a significant difference in the amount of nicotine high from even a few puffs of a cigarette vs. hookah. For a non-smoker like myself, even a few puffs from a cigarette can delivery an extremely powerful nicotine high; the same is not true of a couple of puffs from a water pipe. Why is this? No idea.</p>

<p>

@interesteddad

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>

<p>This is a circular argument. Not only that, it is wrong. I could be trite and point out that nicotine statistically confers protective effects against some neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, and therefore point out that your premise - zero positive benefits - is ludicrous, but that’s not even the fundamental problem with your argument.</p>

<p>Your risk-benefit analysis is flawed by your perspective of someone who was a nicotine addict. The specter of nicotine addiction is very real, and carries with it a litany of problems. But not every person who touches a tobacco product will become addicted; in fact, the very high addiction rates to which you seem to constantly refer are mainly associated with cigarettes - devices which I agree with you, cannot really be smoked without inviting quick addiction.</p>

<p>Your premise is that no one can consume tobacco for any period of time without getting addicted. That premise is false. Furthermore, you dismiss any reasons like social interaction or group relaxation for smoking hookah as meaningless. This too is false. Both premises are based on your experience as a tobacco addict. But while your experience is relevant in general, for a given person who isn’t addicted, it may be completely meaningless.</p>

<p>Demonizing everyone who has ever used tobacco as an addict in the making (something I understand you doing given that you were unable to resist the drug’s addictive nature) and treating every use of tobacco as a ticking time bomb is both unrealistic and makes for bad discussion. Tobacco should be treated with respect commensurate to its extreme addictiveness; that does not mean that one must act as if every time somebody takes a puff of a tobacco product they are acutely endangering their life.</p>

[interesteddad]

<p>

one must act as if every time somebody takes a puff of a tobacco product they are acutely endangering their life

</p>

<p>That is precisely what they are doing. We should add “chew” to “puff” as well. Nicotine addiction kills one out of every two people. So anything that carries a risk of nicotine addiction is acutely endangering your health.</p>

[phishfan0969]

<p>Gee, interesteddad, I wish I was as high and mighty as you!</p>

[Marian]

<p>

If you smoke a hookah several times daily for years on end, yes, you may get cancer. But once in a blue moon? No. Chronic smoking related diseases result from chronic smoking for years on end, not one Saturday a month at a hookah bar.

</p>

<p>The problem is that people usually don’t stick to this frequency of use of any form of tobacco, precisely because of its addictive nature. They tend to use tobacco increasingly often – not necessarily by visiting hookah bars more frequently, but by starting to use cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, or other tobacco products as well. Soon, they have a tobacco habit that is very hard to break.</p>

<p>It’s better not to go this route in the first place. Kicking the habit is brutally difficult, and failure to kick the habit can lead to devastating health consequences.</p>

[gdorf]

<p>

@interesteddad

That is precisely what they are doing. We should add “chew” to “puff” as well. Nicotine addiction kills one out of every two people. So anything that carries a risk of nicotine addiction is acutely endangering your health.

</p>

<p>For someone who likes statistics, you misuse them wildly. One out of every two nicotine addicts is not killed by the habit. One out of two long term cigarette smokers is killed by the habit. That is a wildly different statistic.</p>

<p>Look, I’m not advocating smoking hookah. It’s a personal choice. But it is histrionic and counter-factual to suggest that smoking is playing Russian roulette. Cigarette smoking, maybe - I still don’t agree, but it’s more true. Hookah? Not so much.</p>

[interesteddad]

<p>

Tobacco smoke is not all the same; in the case of cigarettes the makeup of the tobacco is specifically designed to give the best possible delivery of nicotine (this is part of longstanding efforts by tobacco companies to make their products as addictive as possible).

</p>

<p>The only differences are the amount of nicotine and the amount of “free-base” nicotine in a particular tobacco product. Neither of which can be determined without specific testing of a specific tobacco. For example, the “American Spirit” cigarettes advertised as being additive-free have the highest levels of nicotine and “free-base” nicotine of any cigarette currently on the market.</p>

<p>[OHSU</a> researcher publishes first measurements of ‘free-base’ nicotine in cigarette smoke](<a href=“http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/ohs-orp072403.php]OHSU”>http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2003-07/ohs-orp072403.php)</p>

<p>I doubt very much that you have seen an analysis of all the hookah tobaccos to make any claim one way or another.</p>

<p>BTW, here’s a Power Point on one of the first demographic studies of hookah smoking among college and high school students. The perception among young people of a “safe” variant of tobacco smoking is extremely disturbing.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.publichealth.pitt.edu/docs/ReSET-Primack-Hookah-May2008.ppt#256,1,Hookah[/url]”>http://www.publichealth.pitt.edu/docs/ReSET-Primack-Hookah-May2008.ppt#256,1,Hookah&lt;/a&gt; Smoking: The Past and Future of Tobacco?</p>

[luckycharmed]

<p>HGFM:</p>

<p>Remember that you can go and you don’t need to smoke. I’ve done that every time I’ve gone with friends, and while I’ve taken some good natured ribbing about it, it is a great atmosphere and a nice place to relax. I have no desire to smoke, but I still go fairly often (probably 2x a month) when I’m home.</p>

[interesteddad]

<p>Trust me, there is nothing “high and mighty” about nicotine addiction.</p>

<p>You are so sure of yourself. So was I at your age. So, let’s put it to a test. Since you’ve been smoking hookah since your were 14, let’s see if you are addicted. </p>

<p>Stop using all tobacco products today and see if you can go one month without them. If you aren’t addicted, it should be no sweat. Post back here each day with an update…</p>

[gdorf]

<p>

@interesteddad

I doubt very much that you have seen an analysis of all the hookah tobaccos to make any claim one way or another.

</p>

<p>Not enough evidence to make quantitative claims, no. But one can easily make ordinal claims, since cigarette tobaccos are subject to a specific curing process that enhances their addictiveness - this is even mentioned in the first article you linked to - that hookah tobaccos are not.</p>

[interesteddad]

<p>Here’s the first published study analyzing the content of popular hookah tobaccos. This is the abstract. I’m still looking for a free version of the full text.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.cababstractsplus.org/google/abstract.asp?AcNo=20043128813[/url]”>http://www.cababstractsplus.org/google/abstract.asp?AcNo=20043128813&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>What they found was a very wide variation. On average, the hookah tobacco had lower nicotine levels than cigarette tobacco. However, testing for nicotine levels in the blood plasma of smokers showed higher nicotine levels in the bloodstream from smoking the same amount of tobacco in a hookah or a cigarette.</p>

<p>This is not terribly surprising. Researchers have consistently found that so-called “low tar” or “low nicotine” cigarettes don’t make any difference as smokers simply adjust their smoking technique to get their usual “dose”.</p>

[interesteddad]

<p>BTW, what makes you think that Egyptian tobacco companies are any more “socially minded” than American or European tobacco companies? </p>

<p>Come on. Who began introducing fruit-flavored tobacco in the 1990s to increase the appeal of rapidly declining hookah smoking to young people? Like Egyptian tobacco companies really care about your health. Give me a break.</p>

<p>All tobacco companies sell the same product: nicotine addiction.</p>

[SV2]

<p>[Gene</a> raises risk of lifetime smoking habit: study | Markets | Markets News | Reuters](<a href=“http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0845048320080808]Gene”>http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0845048320080808)</p>

<p>for some, smoking even one cigarette (smoking from a hookah once) is a bad idea</p>

[gdorf]

<p>

@interesteddad

BTW, what makes you think that Egyptian tobacco companies are any more “socially minded” than American or European tobacco companies?

</p>

<p>Absolutely nothing. On the other hand, Egyptian tobacco companies aren’t major advertisers in the American market, either.</p>

<p>

@interesteddad

Come on. Who began introducing fruit-flavored tobacco in the 1990s to increase the appeal of rapidly declining hookah smoking to young people? Like Egyptian tobacco companies really care about your health. Give me a break.

</p>

<p>Shisha has been flavored for many years. It didn’t begin in the 1990s.</p>

[phishfan0969]

<p>Actually, Interesteddad, I don’t smoke tobacco except the very occassional hookah. I think smoking cigarettes is dumb, but I don’t feel the need to put others down for it. It’s their own stupid decision and nothing you say will change that.</p>

<p>To the OP: Hookah’s delicious. Going off the fact that you didn’t really know that much about hookahs and you’re in college, I suggest you get out there and live life. Obviously you’re not the kind of person that’s going to go crazy with tobacco and become a smoker. You can’t really judge it 'till you try it.</p>

[HisGraceFillsMe]

<p>^Who’s high and mighty now?</p>

<p>Quite frankly, smoke of any kind disgusts me. Don’t tell me I haven’t lived just because I don’t feel the need to fill my lungs with a foreign substance.</p>