| Hookah smoking involves flavored
tobacco, such as pina colada and cappuccino, filtered through
water in a pipe and smoked through a hose. It is a common
practice for ASU students.
"Young people who are smoking out of a hookah pipe
believe it's a safe form of smoking," said David
Bower, student health educator at ASU with a specialty
in alcohol, tobacco and other drugs.
Napoly Salloum, 29, is the owner of Red Sea Hookah Lounge
and said he averages about 100 customers a night, with
about 45 to 50 percent of them being ASU students.
There have not been many studies on the direct dangers
of hookah smoking. There is a 1964 surgeon general's report,
which mentions hookah smoking contains 50 percent less
toxins than cigarette smoking, Salloum said.
Shisha contains .05 percent nicotine and is filtered
through a water pipe.
The practice of smoking tobacco through elaborate water
pipes called hookahs emerged centuries ago, in the palaces
and harems of the Middle East. But experts say hookahs
are now almost as popular in Denver as they are in Damascus,
with the current fad for water-pipe use growing among
U.S. college students.
The hookah, also called nargile,
is comprised of four parts -- the head, where burning
charcoal heats a bed of tobacco; the body, through which
inhaled smoke is drawn into the third section, a water-filled
bowl at the hookah's base, and the hose, a flexible pipe
through which the user inhales the smoke after it has
bubbled through the water.
"What you get, then, is smoke that has been cooled
by the water," Eissenberg said. Hookah use is, by
its nature, a very social act, with groups of users often
sharing the same pipe.
"Water pipes have been around for centuries, but
it looks like hookah sales
are making a real comeback," Eissenberg said. "They're
making a new appearance in the U.S., but they're also
coming back in the Middle East. They've also shown up
in Germany and Brazil, and in Thailand -- where they were
recently outlawed."
The exact number of water-pipe users in America remains
unknown, he said, but new users typically discover hookahs
in local Middle Eastern restaurants or bars, where they
can be rented for short-term use.
"Then later they might say, 'Hey, this would be
cool for me to have in my dorm,' and go to the Internet
and buy one. They aren't expensive," Eissenberg said.
While traditional Middle Eastern hookah users tended
to favor harsher, dryer tobacco, American users prefer
maassel -- sweetened tobacco with tempting flavors like
apple, watermelon, and licorice.
Hookah tobacco must be smoked with a charcoal,
not a flame.
"The upsurge in use of water pipes, here and in
the Middle East, is highly correlated with the mass-production
of these sweetened and flavored tobaccos," Eissenberg
said.
He stressed that the U.S. shisha
tobacco fad isn't restricted to fringe populations
in cities such as New York or San Francisco. "Washington
state, Louisiana, Tennessee, here in Virginia -- it's
popping up everywhere," he said.
While cigarette use has largely fallen out of favor with
the college crowd, the exotic allure of hookahs
-- and the misperception that hookah smoke is filtered
and safer -- may be driving the trend.
"We don't want to get caught by surprise,"
he said. "I think we need to be vigilant when it
comes to any new tobacco use method that comes into vogue." |
