Who And Media In Sweden

[mgcsinc]

Sonthert,

Thanks for your reply.

For the record, I know very little about second hand smoke, and can't really contribute anything to that discussion. I'll buy your claim about the evidence being dubious, largely because I do think there is an anti-tobacco witch-hunt that has been going on for a long time now.

My commentary had absolutely nothing to do with the WHO report, as I thought I made clear. I don't like literature reviews, especially ones produced by non-scientific organizations, and I would certainly never cite one. I would again encourage you to read the paper that I did cite, Shihadeh, 2003. Your willingness to make general claims about the illegitimacy of a piece of research without so much as downloading the pdf does make me question your claims to scientific prowess.

While you seem eager to compare federal agencies to the Fox News Channel, I think you're quickness to claim that a piece of research (that has only been presented to you as hearsay) defies the laws of physics evokes images of Bill O'Reilly as well. The paper I have cited not only finds that hookah smoke contains tar in large quantities, and that 98% of that tar comes from the tobacco itself rather than the charcoal, but also finds that the tar contains significant quantities of heavy metals including arsenic, beryllium, nickel, cobalt, chromium, and lead. Personally, I believe that if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck - even if limited personal knowledge suggested that it was a whale before I had been able to observe it walking or quacking.

To be fair, I must say that there is much more research to be done, and these researchers did not do a separate analysis on the tar from the coal (2% of the total, remember) to see if it was contributing more of the bad shit (heavy metals, etc.) than the tobacco. I imagine it was contributing a proportionally higher amount, but I certainly don't think it was the only player. Either way, heavy metals aside, tar is gunk that I'm putting in my lungs, and 98% of that gunk does not come from the coal.

As for an explanation, I really don't have the physics background to give one. It may be that fine particulate is able to be swept up from the tobacco into the evaporated glycerin.

[afrdzak]

Hej Erik, what part of Sweden do you reside? I've been tinkering with the idea of moving back to Stockholm and opening a hookah lounge there.

Hej!

I live in Södertälje, just south of Stockholm. Opening a hookah lounge sounds like a good idea, let me know if you need someone to help you I have a few plans in the line of a hookah lounge in the area myself. Only problem is of course the smoking ban, which limits hookah smoking to a designated room where drinking/eating is not allowed - or outdoors during spring/summer.

Actually, i didn't know about the smoking ban. So it applies to Hookah's as well? Interesting... Is it possible to create a dedicated hookah lounge that serves drinks and snacks? It's different than having a restaurant that serves hookah.

[Sonthert]

Sonthert,

Thanks for your reply.

For the record, I know very little about second hand smoke, and can't really contribute anything to that discussion. I'll buy your claim about the evidence being dubious, largely because I do think there is an anti-tobacco witch-hunt that has been going on for a long time now.

My commentary had absolutely nothing to do with the WHO report, as I thought I made clear. I don't like literature reviews, especially ones produced by non-scientific organizations, and I would certainly never cite one. I would again encourage you to read the paper that I did cite, Shihadeh, 2003. Your willingness to make general claims about the illegitimacy of a piece of research without so much as downloading the pdf does make me question your claims to scientific prowess.

While you seem eager to compare federal agencies to the Fox News Channel, I think you're quickness to claim that a piece of research (that has only been presented to you as hearsay) defies the laws of physics evokes images of Bill O'Reilly as well. The paper I have cited not only finds that hookah smoke contains tar in large quantities, and that 98% of that tar comes from the tobacco itself rather than the charcoal, but also finds that the tar contains significant quantities of heavy metals including arsenic, beryllium, nickel, cobalt, chromium, and lead. Personally, I believe that if it walks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it must be a duck - even if limited personal knowledge suggested that it was a whale before I had been able to observe it walking or quacking.

To be fair, I must say that there is much more research to be done, and these researchers did not do a separate analysis on the tar from the coal (2% of the total, remember) to see if it was contributing more of the bad shit (heavy metals, etc.) than the tobacco. I imagine it was contributing a proportionally higher amount, but I certainly don't think it was the only player. Either way, heavy metals aside, tar is gunk that I'm putting in my lungs, and 98% of that gunk does not come from the coal.

As for an explanation, I really don't have the physics background to give one. It may be that fine particulate is able to be swept up from the tobacco into the evaporated glycerin.

It was not clear to me, that you were not referring to the WHO report, since that was the subject of the thread. I did know you were referring to a report.

Again, I understand, your point regarding the tar contents...what I'm saying is what are the contents of that tar? If the tar is predominantly FDA GRAS components...how does that present a health threat? Yes, as a technical point, glycerine is tar, of course it is the largest part of the tobacco. Because they call it "tar" because that fits the definition of tar doesn't mean that hookah tar and cigarette tar are comparable. I agree, hookah tobacco has massive amounts of tar. To compare that tar on a one-to-one basis with cigarette tar is absurd, from my point of view. Thats one of the reasons I am calling this paper's logic into question. How do they compensate for the disparity between the contents of the tar in hookah tobacco and cigarettes? Since you read the paper, I'll ask you to enlighten us. Your reference to the heavy metal content is interesting, but I don't see how heavy metal particles are going to become transferred to a vapor, from a physics point of view. If they were, then distillation as a means of purifying water would be useless (distillation involves boiling the water/impurities mixture...the water as a vapor vents off and is recondensed, purified). Because impurities would still be stuck in the water, we could never have steam-purified water.

The study may have improperly operated the tobacco to dramatize the results, I can't say, but the idea of boiling flavor and glycerine in hookah tobacco is similar to a distillation, if you see what I mean...so the proposition that all these magic bad things get into the flow seems impossible to me.

I believe that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, too. Problem is, you believe somebody who tells you that it walks and quacks like a duck. What if they're wrong? Thank you for your comparison of me to Bill O'Reilly. As I have demonstrated, using an empirical level of reasoning, the study does challenge credibility. You seem to be lacking scientific or logical support for your arguments, just one research paper. I seem to be the one backing up my points, you seem to be saying "The paper says" and not backing up yours. I definitely sound less like Bill O'Reilly than you do. You are indeed resorting to the "Experts say" line of support. Worse, actually you are using the "An Expert Source says". That being said, please confine your debate to non-personal attacks. You got a shot in, I got one in, we're even.

We do agree, that there is a possibility that the bulk of the harmful tar comes from the charcoal. That was the point I was trying to make, I guess that wasn't clear either. They are looking at the overall tar content and not separating the tar into nearly harmless tar and bad tar.

[erik]

Hej Erik, what part of Sweden do you reside? I've been tinkering with the idea of moving back to Stockholm and opening a hookah lounge there.

Hej!

I live in Södertälje, just south of Stockholm. Opening a hookah lounge sounds like a good idea, let me know if you need someone to help you I have a few plans in the line of a hookah lounge in the area myself. Only problem is of course the smoking ban, which limits hookah smoking to a designated room where drinking/eating is not allowed - or outdoors during spring/summer.

Actually, i didn't know about the smoking ban. So it applies to Hookah's as well? Interesting... Is it possible to create a dedicated hookah lounge that serves drinks and snacks? It's different than having a restaurant that serves hookah.

Yes it applies to hookahs as well. The smoking ban even explicitly mentions hookah smoking in the paragraph about what kind of activities are allowed in a smoking room - you are allowed to put more coals on a hookah but not serve drinks or food.

However I have heard about some places going for the hookah lounge thing anyway (there is one in Gothenburg), so it might be something stupid like no real punishments for bringing food to the smoking room if you don't have an alcohol license or similar. It is something worth looking deeper into.

Also some places continue to serve hookahs since they are set up as a "closed membership club" or something, so that might also be a way to get around the ban.

In any way, it's not as easy as it should be :/

Outdoors is a whole different story - so enough heat sources and you could probably create some really cool all-year outdoor lounge

Erik