Let’s say you’re a freshman, eagerly awaiting the substance-induced rebellion promised you by multiple viewings of Animal House. You could binge drink like so many other freshmen, but why go the cliché route? Not to mention you’re as terrified of the new campus alcohol policies as every other student. You’ve been Just-Say-No-ed enough to stay away from hard drugs. Cigarettes might be the right rebellion statement, but you know the health risks and don’t want to end up an addict (and if, like me, you come from the land of a thousand smoking bans called California, this message has permeated your entire being.)
Then a friend invites you to a hookah bar.
“It’s the same as smoking, except it’s way better than tobacco,” I was told the first time I ate hummus and smoked hookah at Prince Café early in my freshman year. “It’s way healthier, too!” The structure of the water jar and pipe supposedly adds an extra filter to the smoke. It sounded reasonable enough at the time.
Since then I’ve hit the hookah at friends’ apartments, smoked in swanky lounges throughout Europe and run up bills at Prince Café that made my wallet cry. I’ve enjoyed the diverse selection of flavors and learned how to blow rudimentary smoke rings. Compared to the effects of alcohol, the mild, light-headed feeling seems far less hazardous. My parents would probably disapprove, which is what I was looking for, but it’s way healthier than tobacco, right?
“Hookah is the gateway drug to gateway drugs,” my friends back home said. You might expect the anything-goes culture of the Bay Area to support hookah, considering the other smokeable substances popular there. Tobacco has always been a cultural exception, however, and the zero-tolerance attitude toward cigarettes seems to extend to the tobacco-laden hookah, at least among the people I know.
It wasn’t the first warning I would get about the supposed hazards of hookah. Common sense will tell you that filling your lungs with smoke isn’t going to improve them. Then again, there are also health risks in drinking, regular sleep deprivation, and an irregular eating schedule, and those are also staples of a college lifestyle.
I never really questioned my belief that hookah was healthier than drinking or smoking until last year, when the feeling of light-headedness that often accompanied hookah turned into nausea. That happened only once, but once was enough to make me look into the health effects of hooka.
Internet research was surprisingly noncommittal regarding hookah’s health effects. A basic news search for hookah health risks comes up with article after article decrying hookah as the worst thing to happen to college campuses. A number of studies claim that hookah is a major cancer risk, or that one 45-minute session of hookah is the carcinogenic equivalent of smoking a pack of cigarettes. The study most often cited is a World Health Organization report on the dangers of water-pipe smoking.
Slightly more research, however, finds holes in these claims. Many of these studies are widely criticized for their methods and skewed results, especially the WHO report.
Additionally, the newest trend in hookah is herbal flavoring, which removes the tobacco, nicotine, and other cigarette-related compounds from the smoke. For the health-conscious hookah smoker, this would be a godsend, although it’s too new to know if herbal hookah is as healthy as it claims to be.
Anyone who claims health benefits from hookah has probably had a bit too much themselves; that light-headed feeling is a clear sign of oxygen deprivation. There are likely many risks with hookah, as there are from alcohol and cigarettes. Be careful, however, when people tell you that hookah is a mortal threat; they may just be blowing smoke in your face.
