Just the other day I was out at a friend's place and he has a shisha pipe. That day I learnt that the pipe's completely detachable and has got a water container, a metal neck, a clay receptacle for the shisha paste and the pipe itself for all the sucking action ;P I also learnt from reading the shisha paste box that the shisha paste is actually made out of tobacco (yep, tobacco... why I doubted this in the first place I don't know), molasses, flavouring and honey/sugar/something sweet. And then there comes the centuries-old discussion on whether smoking ye olde water pipe is safer than smoking cigarettes. Since I've got nothing better to do (aside from planning to take pictures of all my shoes...mmmm =P) I decided it was time I actually did a little digging in this oh-so-controversial department. I guess you could say this is a kecoh health report... since shisha was part of our culture for a bit =P (oh my... I'm so footloose fancy-free that I'm making words HUGE for no necessary reason, although you must admit seeing the work 'sucking' so big would bring your eyes toward it =P)
Shisha VS Cigarettes
Round 1 - Pufferific. DING!
In general faggers take 8-12, 40-75ml puffs over 5-7mins, inhaling 0.5-0.6L of smoke. Shishaers, on the other hand or rather on the other pipe =P, take their time puffing away for 20-80mins taking 50-200 puffs, inhaling 0.15-1L of smoke. So a little calculation presents the conclusion that a single shisha session would pollute you just about the same as smoking 100 or more ciggies. O_o WHO research group said so, okay. Maybe they wanna scare the little kiddies from playing hookah.
If you feel like reading a report, which I highly doubt... it's very wordy -
Round 2 - A question of smoke. DING! DING!
Shisha no filter but got water what? Water will save us! This is a no brainer but yep, the water ain't gonna do you much good... tobacco companies spend money they could spend bribing more important people on researching filters, why would water do any better? And then there's charcoal burning way at the top of that innocent claypot.
Round 3 - Wikipedia has a say =P DING! DING! DING!
"A review published in the medical journal Pediatrics (I don't know why it'd be in Peds...) found that the concentration of cancer-causing and addictive substances in water-pipes may be equal to those found in cigarettes, with the heat involved being sufficient to generate carcinogenic nitrosamines, and the smoldering charcoal adding some carcinogenic hydrocarbons as well as heavy metals to the smoke.[7] Similarly, a study in the November 2005 issue of the Journal of Periodontology found that the impact of water pipe smoking is equivalent in magnitude to that of cigarette smoking.[8] Ironically, use of the hookah may increase the smoker's toxic exposure, in that studies have shown that the typical hookah smoker spends more time per smoking session than do other smokers, presumably because the smoke is less immediately harsh or irritating."
Fetish for more info? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah Haha! Like you'll actually read that.
It appears that there is also insufficient research in terms of what exactly in shisha would cause harm aside from the tobacco and charcoal. Research question for ya there. At the end of it all, just don't smoke lah...
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