Hookah vs tobacco cigarettes? What's the real story

As we all know, smoking or using spit tobacco has many harmful side effects and negative health consequences. Smoking tobacco is the leading cause of PREVENTABLE deaths in the United States. One of the major culprits for the continued use is nicotine. Nicotine is a very power psychoactive drug, meaning that once nicotine enters the brain, it triggers many of our chemical messenger to be released and causes our body to be in a state of fight-or-flight. The dependence for this nasty substance will creep up on a person. If they don't smoke, there will be withdrawal symptoms occurring. Here are just a few statistics about smoking:

* about 71 million people smoke
* although it's illegal to sell cigarettes to a minor, about 500 million packs are consumed by minors each year

With so much information about smoking health risks, it's a wonder why people still smoke. There are so many smoke-cessation groups and programs that can effectively help people kick the nicotine habit.


One major controversy that I have come across in my life is whether smoking hookah is different than smoking cigarettes. I know many people who smoke hookah but they would never smoke a cigarette! Why is that? Unsure...

Hookah is basically a waterpipe which is used to smoke tobacco, in which the smoke is cooled and filtered by passing through water. This activity originates from India and is gaining much popularity in the US. I, myself, did not know what hookah was or what the health implications were of smoking it but all i did know, was that smoking tobacco is smoking tobacco... who cares if its in a cigarette form or a hookah waterpipe. I would never touch the stuff. So this is mainly for those who don't know the health implications of smoking hookah.

Smoking hookah has shown the same health effects as if smoking cigarettes... bad ones!
- the tobacco is not less toxic in hookah than with cigarettes
- the filtering of the smoke does not remove the toxic ingredients
- hookah smoke contains the same nasty chemicals as cigarettes; hookah smokers are exposed to more carbon monoxide than cigarette smokers!
- you receive the same amount of nicotine from hookah as you would from a cigarette.
- the harms from secondhand smoke is the same for both

Here's the even worse information:
- Normally, each hookah session lasts about 45 minutes; within that time, you are consuming 100-200 times the smoke of a single cigarette. Think of the increased amount of nicotine and carbon monoxide you will be inhaling just from one round of hookah!
- Hookah smokers are at risk for the same kinds of diseases as cigarette smokers: including oral, lung,and stomach cancers
- lastly, if you are sharing the pipe with other people,the risk of transmission of diseases such as herpes or hepatitis or other illness will increase

To conclude, I am exposing the truth about Hookah to all the people out there who do not know the risks that are involved in this social activity. Please think the next time that your friends want to go out to the Hookah bar... do you really want to be exposing yourself to these harmful substances? If you don't like cigarette smoking, hookah is not any better!