Hookah Smoking

[Jazzy]

While cigarette use among teens has declined in recent years, hookah smoking appears to be rapidly gaining popularity. A new study finds that 18 percent of high school seniors -- nearly one in five -- reported smoking a hookah, or water pipe, within the past year.

The study, published online July 7 in the journal Pediatrics, looked at data from 5,540 high school seniors between 2010 and 2012. The results showed that hookah smoking was particularly popular among teens from families with above-average incomes.

"It is a new niche as cigarette use has decreased," study co-author Dr. Michael Weitzman, a professor of pediatrics and environmental medicine at NYU, told CBS News. While cigarette use among in the U.S. has decreased by 33 percent in the last decade, hookah use has increased by 123 percent during the same period, he said.

The study found that hookah use was more common among teens who also smoked cigarettes or used alcohol, marijuana or other potentially harmful substances.

Hookah, also called shisha, is an ancient method of smoking, long popular in the Middle East, in which charcoal-heated tobacco-based or "herbal" non-tobacco-based smoke is passed through water before inhalation. Part of the appeal of hookah lies in the ritualistic way of using it, the researchers said.

A one-hour session of hookah smoking is equivalent to smoking about two or three packs of cigarettes in terms of health risks, Farber said.

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Have you ever smoked a hookah?

Would you try smoking a hookah?

 

[DrLeftover]

no

a dumb, overly complicated, idea

 

[Raven]

I know it as a shisha pipe. Smoked one once in Turkey with the Bedouin people.

 

[Kirito]

Ritualistic? LOL it's just something fun to do while chilling with friends. It's like people who only smoke while going out. It creates a certain atmosphere, I guess.

I like it. I bought a handcrafted one in India, but that one is more for decoration. I got 3 normal, modern glass ones that I regularly use when friends come over.

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

Been there, done that. It's something to do just to say you've done it, but I wouldn't turn it into a regular thing.. I assume that's why any Hooka bar that opens up arond here is out of business 6 months - a year later.

 

[Phossix]

I smoked one last night actually.

 

[Jazzy]

I smoked one last night actually.

Now, that explains everything......

 

[Jazzy]

I actually thought hookah smoking was something sexual.

Oh, nevermind....

 

[Nebulous's iconNebulous]

I actually thought hookah smoking was something sexual.

Oh, nevermind....

I never heard any refer to the male body part as a "hookah" , have you? ...