The Paper Trail

Think Twice Before You Hookah Up

May 2, 2007 RSS Feed Print

Comment (6)
Tweet

Mint hookah may taste so fresh and so clean, but lung doctors—who are concerned about its increasing popularity with college students—are starting to dish the dirt on the tasty tobacco. The Daily Aztec at San Diego State University reports that a standard "head" of hookah tobacco has nicotine levels comparable to 70 cigarettes' worth and that smoking a hookah for 45 minutes is worse than smoking 21 cigarettes.

« Previous Post Next Post »

Reader Comments Read all comments (6)

Add Your Thoughts Comment Name State Email

Please enter the two words below into the text field underneath the image.

Your comment will be posted immediately, unless it is spam or contains profanity. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ.

Tobacco gets attacked because idiots like you develop COPD, heart disease, and cancer, and then cause people like me to be burdened with your medical costs. Even if you have insurance, you are not fully paying for the costs of your self inflicted disease, so the costs go up for the others insured. If you don't have insurance, all of us taxpayers get screwed. Not to mention the emotional distress you cause your loved ones when you get ill from your own reckless choices.

Ray of FL 6:19AM July 29, 2011

Ok, so during my usual random internet surfing today i started stumbling across these hookah articles, and frankly this is retarded. Hi, my name is Fred and i am a sales rep for an electronic cigarette company named Quantumcig. i have smoked hookah for quite a few years now, as well as pretty much everything else that can be smoked. So i have decided to go to a few more of these sites so that hopefully i can spread some knowledge. first off, hookah smoke cannot be compared to cigarette smoke because you arent inhaling 4000+ chemicals that cigarette companies intentionally add to the tobacco to make their cigarettes more addictive. that is NOT to say it is at all good for you, just that its MUCH better. from the 1950's to now, the amount of smokers have dropped considerably, yet the amount of cigarette related deaths has risen more than 10%. why? because cigarette companies are adding more shit! no secret there, they want people to be more hooked on their product, and they dont give a crap who it hurts.hookah doesnt have any of those additives, so its not as bad. YES, hookah is bad for you. so are cigars, cigarettes, marijuana, crack, and (yep, im sayin it) electronic cigarettes. People seem to miss this in every argument about smoking, and on both sides of the argument: your body isnt built to smoke ANYTHING! its all bad. and before anyone gets pissy towards me, remember- im a smoker! i enjoy smoking, and i make the conscious decision every day to do it anyways. im just pointing out the facts here people. YES, hookah STILL CAUSES CANCER! tobacco itself naturally has carcinogens, as well as nicotine. the reason there is a lower percentage in hookah is because the tobacco is diluted by the fruit molasses. now, let me address a seemingly popular myth that hookah doesnt have tar. i realize the box says it people but anyone who says it like that is an idiot. sorry. tar, by definition, as a resinous residue created by burning various plants (tobacco, marijuana). despite your ideas about not inhaling, you are still inhaling a portion of the smoke and therefore loading your lungs with TAR and making you more susceptible to lung cancer. however, because you do not have all of the horrible chemicals, you are much less likely to contract lung cancer, as well as any of the other diseases from cigarettes. and maybe its just me, but the anti-hookah movement sounds alot like the anti-electronic cigarette movement. now, lets think- who would be the most opposed to specifically smoking hookah? most anti smokers dont care whats BETTER for you, because they know its ALL BAD. so who hurts the most by people switching to hookah? the same people who hurt from people switching to e-cigs: cigarette companys and pharmaceutical companies! both of which- guess what- are known to back the main organization responible for alerting hazardous substances, the FDA! wow, how bout that. maybe people should do just a bit of research before taking a side. hmmmm....
-Fred

fred of GA 6:41PM October 19, 2009

This is an Onion Network style spoof right? Tell us no one is actually believing this crap. This is so absolutely ludicrous, it's scary that anyone would be listening. Sorry there Linday Lyon (and no, we don't believe that is your real name - most certainly you don't work for 'US NEWS AND WORLD'), but you and the WHO have obviously been smoking somthing other than sisha or cigarettes. Here are some real facts:
All major shisha manufacturers have nicotine listed at 0.5% and tar listed at 0.0%. That's 0% as in NO tar.
Pack of Marlboro Full Flavor 100's Filter: 16 miligrams of tar and 1.2 miligrams of nicotine (From PhilipMorris.com).
In a REAL STUDY of cigarettes: "Among the findings, Marlboro had as much as 9.6 percent freebase nicotine; Camel contained 2.7 percent; Winston had 5 percent to 6.2 percent; and Gauloises Blondes was found to have 5.7 percent to 7.5 percent."
Source: "'Freebase' Nicotine Thought to Make Cigarettes More Addictive" 30 July. 2003. www.nacsonline.com (26 August. 2004)).
No tar and way less nicotine, as none of the shisha companies are insidiously adding nicotine to produce an addiction. Anyone who has ever smoked a hookah knows that it's not only easy to stop smoking the hookah for long periods of time, it's essential. The pipe's just too damn big to carry around and light up everytime you're jonesing for a smoke. So put that in your hookah and smoke it!

Abdullah of MN 3:27PM September 26, 2009

Think Twice Before You Hookah Up

Reader Comments Read all comments (6)

The Paper Trail

AMERICA'S BEST COLLEGES

Editor's Picks