By Emma Secker, Staff Writer
Ensnaring users with its seductive scents and tastes, inviting social atmosphere and physically addictive tobacco component, hookah smoking has become a fashionable trend in today’s society, especially among college students and young adults. A relaxed and communal activity, a hookah’s aromatic smoke is considered a breath of fresh air by many.
Hookahs are a special kind of water pipe used for smoking flavored tobacco. Because users often assume smoking hookah causes fewer negative health effects than cigarettes, tobacco critics tend to demonize it less. It is considered to be a safer option by some, although users may not have thoroughly researched the facts.
Though concrete evidence of a hookah’s health effects remains largely inconclusive and oftentimes conflicting, the majority of experts agree smoking tobacco by means of hookah can, in some cases, present fewer negative health ramifications than smoking cigarettes.
Smoke from a hookah is cooled and filtered through a water chamber on the way to the hose from which smokers inhale. Because of this, hookah users often consume larger quantities of smoke in a single inhalation than from a single cigarette puff. A typical hookah session lasts anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes. When comparing inhalation capacity and smoke time, smoking hookah can easily be seen as more detrimental to one’s health compared to cigarettes.
According to Dr. Thomas Eissenberg, professor for the Department of Psychology and Institute for Drug and Alcohol Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, the average puff from a hookah pipe contains about 500 mL of smoke, while one from a cigarette produces only about 50 mL.
The myth that smoking hookah is less dangerous than cigarettes stems from a failure by users to consider the amount of smoke inhaled during the average hookah session. According to studies by the World Health Organization, a hookah user inhales the equivalent of 100 cigarettes worth of smoke per session. There is less nicotine in each mL of smoke when filtered through a hookah, but because of the lengthy smoking sessions and greater amounts of smoke inhaled per puff, hookah smokers actually consume more nicotine than if they were to smoke a single cigarette. Hookah users are susceptible to the same kinds of diseases as cigarette users, including heart disease, respiratory disease and cancer.
Hookah users are typically drawn to its social and communal aspect as opposed to the oftentimes isolated ritual of going outside for a cigarette. Users tend to light up far less frequently than cigarette users and in more specific and special environments. There is no shortage of hookah lounges in San Diego and the College Area, and students who frequent them may want to consider their health before lighting up again.
