Hookah is a single or multi-stemmed instrument used to smoke and vaporize different flavored tobacco called Shisha. When going to a hookah bar you can usually pick how many you want and there is a full menu of different flavors to pick from. The bar is filled with couches and games that you can play with your friends making it an inviting and very social place to be. Hookah is so inviting and fun it doesn't seem like you're smoking tobacco which is harmful for you. In a typical hour long hookah session 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke from a single cigarette is inhaled. The chemical composition of the smoke is different, however it is expected that long term and heavy use will lead to diseases from the tobacco use. The water in the hookah does not filter out the toxic ingredients in the tobacco making it no less toxic than a cigarette so it is not a better alternative although some believe it is. Along with hookah many people have an ecig (electronic cigarette) which is water vapor and you can fill it with a flavor that either contains nicotine or none at all. These are said to be a better alternative to smoking however there aren't many studies to prove what the effects are in the long run so the ecig way to hookah may not be a safe option either. Hookahs and hookah bars will continue to be used by many for the social aspect but before you inhale the next time you should think about the harms it could be doing to your body.
Even as young as freshmen in high schools, I see pictures of them using a hookah, or even posting about it. And I didn't even know there were such things as "hookah bars." It's amazing that this world has come to all sorts of transformations, especially when it comes to drugs and alcohol. You're also right about that people should think about what they inhale into their bodies.
ReplyDeleteWow I didn't think that hookahs were as worse as smoking a cigarette. That just blows my mind because inhale done hookah before,but it has never once came across my mind that hookah was as worse as a normal cigarette. I will no longer smoke hookah because its like smoking s cigarette. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteI love to smoke both cigarettes and hookah, because I can reduce my stress by smoking them. When I was smoking hookah in high school, all of my friends including me thought that hookah will not effect as much as regular cigarettes do, which is wrong as you said above. I would never say smoking hookah is bad, because I know a lots of people including me are having fun by smoking it. However, I think we need to teach younger generation that smoking hookah will effect your health. Nobody taught us that the hookah will effect more than smoking cigarettes when I was in high school.
ReplyDeleteI smoke hookah with my friend just because she has one and i have never been to a hookah bar but I do enjoy doing it. I always believed that smoking hookah was a better alternate to cigarettes I guess I was wrong. Yet this article doesn't steer me away from doing it, but it is not something that i will frequent everyday. I do believe that hookah users don't use as much as say cigarette smokers due to the time consuming way of setting up and at hookah bars paying to do it. I think the inconvenience of hookah makes it safer than the convenience of cigarette smokers. Very interesting post!!
ReplyDeleteI smoke hookah with my friend just because she has one and i have never been to a hookah bar but I do enjoy doing it. I always believed that smoking hookah was a better alternate to cigarettes I guess I was wrong. Yet this article doesn't steer me away from doing it, but it is not something that i will frequent everyday. I do believe that hookah users don't use as much as say cigarette smokers due to the time consuming way of setting up and at hookah bars paying to do it. I think the inconvenience of hookah makes it safer than the convenience of cigarette smokers. Very interesting post!!
ReplyDeleteI am a former hooker smoker and I personally believe inhaling anything whether its a hookah, e-cig, or cigarette are all going to have some type of effect on your body. Only difference is that one may be more harmful then the other. I thought it was very interesting to know that during a typical hour long hookah session that one can inhale 100-200 times the volume of a single cigarette. Although, who is to say that a smoker only smokes one cigarette per hour? This article definitely made me more aware by giving me insight on whats going into my system. Most people are so focused on cigarettes being harmful while the e-cigs and hookahs are known for the alternatives. Im going to pass this information on to my friends because I feel more people should be informed for their health.
ReplyDeleteI have little intentions of quitting smoking, high wishes, but the motivation doesn't exist yet. I do believe in the dangers of contaminating one's lungs with any foreign substance. In highschool we watched a video about centenarians, people who live over 100years old, and one thing most had in common was they smoked. Given, there are many factors that contribute to their health and lifestyle. It's just interesting to know that there are/were people who smoke, and they lived to be healthy and very old. My thoughts on the E-Cigs may stem from my paranoia from previous pneumonia experiences, but if one is puffing on water vapor all day where it is contracted into the lungs, who's to say that they can't cause pneumonia? The tobacco that is distributed in our hookah's and cigarettes is usually made with over 600 ingredients, and when burned creates over 4,000 chemicals. The cigarettes that our great grandparents were smoking before everyone and their mother was getting lung cancer were made of just pure tobacco, picked, hung, and dried straight out of the ground. Am I against smoking? Not really. Am I against what companies put into my smoking substances? Very much so. Whether it's the hookah, e-cig, or traditional cigarette: there are dangers in putting any foreign substance into our bodies. Society should acknowledge that a little more. One could reduce such risks by going to more natural things that our bodies handle better, rather than a fabricated perversion of what's already natural.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely not consider hookah and cigarettes to have the same health effects. I believe they are both detrimental to ones body simply because it's smoke entering the lungs. Yet, the difference is hookah you can pace yourself, do it in moderation because, it has no nicotine in it! I would say that's a big enough difference. As for cogarettes that's why they are so dangerous because the addiction factor.
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