Smoking hookah may look a lot more cool and safe than smoking a cigarette, but the reality is that it is just as harmful. Hookah smoke contains all kinds of toxins that cause cancer just like cigarette smoke.
The following is from the Mayo Clinic:
- Hookah smoke contains high levels of toxic compounds, including tar, carbon monoxide, heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens). In fact, hookah smokers are exposed to more carbon monoxide and smoke than are cigarette smokers.
- As with cigarette smoking, hookah smoking is linked to lung and oral cancers, heart disease, and other serious illnesses.
- Hookah smoking delivers about the same amount of nicotine as cigarette smoking, possibly leading to tobacco dependence.
- Hookah smoke poses dangers associated with secondhand smoke.
- Hookah smoking by pregnant women can result in low birth weight babies.
- Hookah pipes used in hookah bars and cafes may not be cleaned properly, risking the spread of infectious diseases.
It is clear that there are plenty of risks with smoking hookah and it should not be viewed as a safe alternative to cigarettes. Just like with cigarette smoking, it takes a while to do studies on how it will effect the body, because it takes years for the side effects to occur and trends cannot be spotted until then.
It would be worthwhile to do a study comparing cigarette smokers with hookah smokers and see how they differ overall years down the road. The study would need to have people that already smoke either hookah or cigarettes to participate but not both. It would probably be unethical to get someone to smoke hookah that did not before for the study and it would definitely be unethical to get someone that did not smoke cigarettes before to smoke cigarettes in the study. Other confounding variables could be alcohol consumption, exercise, and other physical differences but in a large enough study the randomness of the trial will account for these differences.
In reality this would be a tough study to pull off and track for all these years. The only way to look at future data would be to look at hospital records and see the amount of smokers who have certain kinds of cancer compared to nonsmokers, but even then there might not be enough people that have only smoked cigarettes and not hookah or only smoked hookah and never smoked cigarettes.
The mayo clinic of course is not the only source that says hookah is harmful. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another highly regarded source says, “Similar to cigarettes, hookah smoking delivers the addictive drug nicotine and it is at least as toxic as cigarette smoking. While many hookah smokers may consider this practice less harmful than smoking cigarettes, hookah smoking carries many of the same health risks as cigarettes” (CDC). Clearly hookah smoking is dangerous, despite many high school and college students thinking that it is safe and a lot different from cigarette smoking.
It’s interesting where the idea that hookah is safe came from? It seems like a lot of people share the belief that it is harmless. In a survey of people in three hookah lounges in Southern California, 57% of people did not think smoking hookah was harmful to their health, with the reasons for that varied.
Another concern was that the 43% of hookah smokers that knew it was harmful, still participated anyway. “Socializing with friends appeared to outweigh health concerns” (Science Daily). People see smoking hookah as something fun to do as a group, which is why it’s a lot more popular with high school and college students than cigarettes.
The bottom line is that if someone will not smoke cigarettes because of the risks and dangers associated with it, then they also should not smoke hookah.
I never understand the point of hookah or why it would be considered cool. The idea that it’s a social thing to do with friends make it look more attractive than cigarettes and I guess the actual mechanism used for smoking hookah could be considered interesting, but I think it’s people being misinformed that is the biggest reason why it’s so popular. Many people don’t realize how bad it can be and anti-smoking ads should definitely start targeting hookah specifically to spread the message to more people that this is not a safe way to smoke. I think everyone should know by now how bad cigarettes are for you and anyone deciding to smoke cigarettes nowadays is deliberately going against clear information out there. However, with hookah many people are misinformed about what it actually is and the dangers that come with it that are just like cigarettes.
I enjoyed your blog post because there have been many times where my friends and I have gone to hookah bars in NYC. Young and naive we didn’t know that the hookah that we were consuming is equally and maybe even more harmful than smoking cigarettes. There are no added positives to smoking hookah, besides the fact that “smoke looks cool.” I think that your suggestion to conduct a study that compares cigarette smokers with hookah smokers and see how they differ overall years down the road, is a great idea. By doing this, doctors or scientists can see from the outside which substance is killing people more. Both practices are not safe and should be more heavily regulated than they are today.
I never understood the fascination around hookahs. My friend back home has one at his home, and when he would bring it out I never could really grasp why. Now, hookah bars are a very popular thing to do for many students. I still could not grasp this idea, as according to George Washington University, http://prevention.gwu.edu/cigarettes-vs-hookah , hookahs may even be worse for you then a cigarette. The social stigma of cigarettes is very effective on the youth of today. Yet there is no bad social stigma towards hookahs even with their effects. This never quite made sense to me.
I liked this topic, I too think it’s bad for you too smoke any type of hookah even the hookah pens and vaporizers. E-cigarettes and e-hookahs have cancerous products in them and there is too much in the unknown for hookahs especially the long term effects. In general yes smoking is bad for you. But I think that if you’re smoking hookah in leu of having a cigarette then you’re probably just as well off smoking an actual cigarette. There’s not going to be any real safe or better form of smoking tobacco.
I always thought it was strange how people think cigarettes are so bad, but think of hookah as a fun social thing to do. I think that is part of the problem, that hookah is marketed as a fun thing to do with your friends. Did you know that smoking hookah for one hour is the equivalent of smoking 100 cigarettes? It is actually unbelievable to hear, but I think if more people knew this then they would think twice before smoking hookah. With all of the anti-smoking campaigns out there, I think that some of them should be geared toward hookah and electric cigarette smokers. While I’m sure that those who smoke these fruity contraptions know that it isn’t good for them, I doubt they understand that they are nearly comparable to smoking cigarettes.