Hookah concerns

[geraldzito]

I have been smoking hookah for a while. Does anybody think about cancer and heart disease. I mean we inhale much deeper and longer than cigarette smokers. Has this ever been discussed?

[Growley Monster]

Very likely it is more harmful to smoke one bowl of shisha than a cigarette. Or even a dozen cigarettes. The thing is, you don't walk around smoking hookah all day long. Me and my GF only smoke maybe once a week on average. So it depends on your usage, I think, and it is a lot easier to put the brakes on the habit and indulge only occasionally or at least only smoke once a day. You don't see many cigarette smokers smoking just once or twice a day, or once a week. It is too simple to light up and walk around, or even work with a coffin nail dangling from your lip or stuck between your fingers. The addiction is easily and cheaply satisfied, so no barrier to getting severely hooked. It is convenient to light the next one from the stub of the last one. They are cheap and available everywhere. A hookah is something you partake in when your day is done and it is time to relax. Something you do at home, or in a cafe that has hookahs. It is something that you will commit at least a half hour to. Becoming a hardcore hookah addict just can't happen for most of us.

A given volume of smoke or a given number of puffs on the hose are most definitely more harmful than the same on a cigarette. Sure, you are only vaporizing the tar and nicotine in the shisha if you smoke in the usual way, with foil or a perforated plate holding the coals above the shisha, and not actually burni. But remember also that you are inhaling Carbon Monoxide from the smoldering charcoal. And as you say, you usually inhale quite deeply. Even a first time hookah smoker will inhale a tremendous volume of smoke because it does not make you cough. Only a hardcore cig smoker inhales so deeply because the smoke is more noxious and makes you cough.

It's all about moderation. Almost anything is really bad for you if you do it too much. Very few things are really all that bad for you if you do them with reasonable restraint.