Extreme teens: getting high on the hookah
Image via Wikipedia
I was never a big fan of cigarettes during high school: a few mornings coughing up blood, courtesy of rather unfortunate, repeated encounters with entire packages of Export A’s smoked consecutively, were enough to turn me off. But I can’t say the same for shisha: a delicious, often fruit-flavored tobacco that’s smoked using a hookah pipe. There’s nothing like rolling up all the windows in your mom’s mini-van and inhaling the unadulterated taste of sour apple mixed with addiction.
Yes, yes, high school was a wild and crazy time. And while I wasn’t naive enough to think shisha was harmless, I’m a wee bit perturbed at the results of a new study out of the University of Florida. A poll of 9,000 students evaluated their usage of tobacco products, and, for the first time, included shisha and hookah pipes. This is only the second study ever to examine the use of shisha tobacco among teens. The results: 11 percent of high schoolers, and 4 percent of middle school kids, have used the tasty snuff. According to the research team, there’s mounting evidence of “widespread use of water pipe smoking among youth in the United States.”
Maybe if teens knew how disgustingly bad the stuff was, they’d consider switching vices. Cigarettes, anyone?
….during a typical 20- to 80-minute hookah session, users may smoke the equivalent of 100 or more cigarettes, according to the World Health Organization. Hookah smoking can deliver 11 times more carbon monoxide than a cigarette, in addition to high levels of other carcinogenic toxins and heavy metals found in cigarettes. While the water in the hookah pipes does absorb some nicotine, researchers believe smokers are exposed to enough to cause addiction.
Of course, twenty to eighty minutes is a big window. But it just goes to show: adding fruit flavoring does not necessarily make a product safe to ingest. Unlike cigarettes, however, shisha still has accessibility on its side: cities are increasingly banning cigarette smoking in public, but over 100 hookah bars have popped up across Florida, and Canadian cities have been home to hookah hot spots for years. Plus, cigarettes leave that gritty aftertaste and an Aunt Selma throatiness with repeated use. Whereas shisha tobacco tastes like fruity heaven, and really, can something surrounded by antioxidant-rich fruit be that bad for you?
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
After smoking cancer sticks for five years and finally quitting cold-turkey following a surgery, I can safely say that cigarettes are more addictive — to me, anyway.
Because it’s so rich and otherwise rather expensive, I find smoking a hookah to be less enjoyable if done too frequently. Once every couple weeks is enough. While it certainly has addicting properties, the effects on yours truly are quite unlike cigarettes.
Plus, there aren’t any death nails with flavors like “lemon mint” or “raspberry cola.” And thank God because if there were, I wouldn’t have been able to quit. Now I only get nicotine a couple times a month if that and don’t see myself ever fiending like I used to were it taken away.