Aug 17 - 1 Hr of Hookah = 200 Cigarettes?

The smoky truth on hookahs


Over the weekend, I went to a Greek bistro with friends and immediately noticed the lovely, fruity smell filling the room. That's when I saw an oddly shaped, smoky gadget passing from person to person. The hookah. I'm not a smoker, and really didn't think twice about it until the hookah passed by my table and several people adamantly insisted I have a puff. When I mentioned I am training for a half-marathon and, for the sake of my lungs, I would have to decline, I was told "Relax!" Followed unanimously by, "It's healthy and it doesn't do damage like smoking cigarettes!" Since the aroma didn't jar in me the same "ick" reaction cigarette smoke often does, I was tempted to believe them. I declined but the journalist in me naturally wanted more information.

The hookah has been used for centuries, particularly across regions of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia, as a means of smoking tobacco. It is essentially a water pipe, and many believe the water helps filter out the toxins from the tobacco. Some historians believe the myth of the healthy hookah started more than 500 years ago, when an Indian physician offered the idea, essentially, as a means of boosting sales for his new device. Alas, despite its alluring, fruity aroma, the truth is, smoking the hookah is no safer than smoking cigarettes.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, hookah use carries many of the same risks as cigarette smoking including: exposure to high levels of toxic compounds, increased risk of oral, esophageal and lung cancers, reduced lung function and decreased fertility. In fact the World Health Organization estimates the typical one-hour session of hookah smoking exposes a person to almost 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette. And sharing the hookah puts smokers at greater risk for transmission of diseases including tuberculosis and viruses like herpes and hepatitis. And yes, secondhand smoke from hookahs poses an equally serious risk to non-smokers like me.

I guess the moral of the story is, don't believe everything you hear. If you're going to smoke, no matter what the fashion, it's best to be aware of the consequences. As for me, if I'm going to choose my poison, as they say, I suppose I'll just stick to my chocolate addiction and to my own personal myth that eating tons of chocolate is actually good for me. The good thing though, is that my lungs will be healthy enough to actually run my half-marathon, and, I hope, curtail some of the negative effects of my vice.

Has this ever happened to you? Are there any practices people tell you are healthy, but you're not entirely convinced?

The smoky truth on hookahs – The Chart - CNN.com Blogs

so would that be the equivalent to 200 joints with weed? [pic]

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Better comparison would be to an hour of cigarette smoking, not a single cig.

I hate those people who talk !! about cigarette smokers while they puff on a hookah.

ANY SMOKE YOU INHALE IS BAD FOR YOU

Yes, weed too, [pic]

Don't believe the hype, do the research yourself.

....with hookah though your not able to burn at your leisure and mostly everywhere as your able to do with cigs tho. Thats what makes cigs so dangerous.

No denying that smoking anything is bad for you, including hookah, but while it might be the same volume of smoke as cigarettes, the chemical composition is different both because its burnt at a lower temp and it doesn't have the additives that cigarettes do.

Plus, for a lot of people hookah is an occasional thing.

I understand any smoke in your lungs is bad for you, but how can hookah smoke be as bad as cigarettes? don't cigarettes have all sorts of extra chemicals added?

I will never purposely put any type of smoke in my lungs

!! that life

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I smoke hookah everyday if not every week [pic]

While it's true that the inhalation of any smoke will cause some damage to your lungs there is absolutely no proof that smoking marijuana can cause lung cancer and k!ll you like cigarettes

theres so many hookah cafe where i live, like one every mile

think u got that statement backwards

The marijuana itself won't cause cancer but the tar and carcinogens from it can, particularly since marijuana smokers hold the smoke in the lungs for much longer then when someone is smoking a cigarette. It also places a lot more carbon monoxide in the blood than cigarettes. I think you'd have to smoke 1 blunt a day for something like 10 years to be at serious risk though.