Tobacco News and Interesting Information

Although not even hookah fans suggest that smoking tobacco through a water pipe is healthful, many contend that drawing the smoke through the water removes some of the harmful chemicals.

Scientists, however, point out that although the hookah might filter out some irritants, the smoke nevertheless contains high levels of nicotine, carbon monoxide and other toxic chemicals. The trouble is, they can't say exactly how unhealthful it is, particularly compared with cigarettes.

The potential risks, or relative safety, of hookah smoking has taken on added relevance as hookah bars have begun to sprout up across the United States in recent years.

There are more than 400 hookah cafes, according to an online database of hookah bars, with half in California, Illinois, New York, Arizona and Florida. The growing popularity of hookah bars has led the American Lung Association and the World Health Organization to issue advisories on the dangers of hookah smoking.

"Any of the major diseases that are associated with cigarette smoking are associated with hookah pipe smoking," says Paul Knepprath, vice president of government relations for the American Lung Association of California. The long-term dangers, he says, include lung and heart disease, cancer, emphysema and heightened asthma attacks.

The American Lung Association's Tobacco Policy Trend Alert, released in February, describes hookah smoking as the first new tobacco-use trend of the 21st century. This is particularly disheartening, Knepprath says, because the use of cigarettes and other forms of tobacco has declined dramatically in the past 40 years.

A key sticking point among researchers is the question of just how much nicotine and other dangerous chemicals are contained in hookah smoke, and how much of that is absorbed by the body.

"There's certainly no evidence that it is safer," says Dr. David Burns, professor emeritus of medicine at the University of California, San Diego and a contributor to the WHO report, "and there is evidence that it contains many of the toxic constituents of tobacco. And you may get them in higher doses than you would from smoking cigarettes because of the very large volume of smoke that you ingest." Hookah sessions typically last 20 to 80 minutes, and the mildness of the smoke allows for deeper inhalations.