Setting down their cigarettes, teenagers take up the hookah

Ryan Baucom, the co-owner of a downtown Sarasota nightspot that caters to the 18-25 crowd, has turned to an old custom to attract young customers.At The Box Social club, Baucom recently started renting out a hookah. Business is so good he plans to buy another.
“It’s becoming more and more popular,” he said.
In higher numbers than those who frequently smoke cigarettes, teenagers are trying hookahs: water pipes from the Middle East that use coals to burn flavored tobacco.
A new University of Florida study is among the first to to show that the popularity of hookahs is not limited to college bars and nightclubs, where they have proliferated over the past few years. Fifteen percent of Florida high school students said they tried smoking hookah, according to the Department of Health. That is up nearly 5 percentage points over two years ago.
“Most everybody I know has one,” said Ilona Davidovich, a senior at Riverview High whose friends organized a weekly “Hookah Tuesday” meeting at each other’s houses. “It’s something to do with your friends after school.”
Researchers say the trend’s foothold with teenagers threatens to undo progress made in the war on smoking by attracting new smokers at an age when most addiction first occurs.
Part of the problem is that many hookah smokers believe it is safer than smoking cigarettes. While public smoking campaigns address cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco, references to the new hookah trend are largely absent. And even in places where indoor smoking is banned, hookah cafes are exempt.
“Psychologically, people are rationalizing it,” said Dr. Brian Primack, a University of Pittsburgh medical professor who has studied hookah smoking for the last four years. “They say there’s no tar, but there is; it’s a product of burning stuff and inhaling it. They say the water is a filter; water is not a filter.”
About 40 percent of people who smoke hookah refuse to smoke cigarettes, according to several surveys.
But, although research on the effects of hookah smoking is ongoing, none of it points to hookahs being less harmful than cigarettes, Primack said.
One study estimated the amount of tar inhaled after a typical, hour-long, hookah session was equal to 36 cigarettes.
The World Health organization says the amount of smoke inhaled is equal to that of 100 cigarettes.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control points out that hookah smoking can cause the same cancers as cigarette smoking, and can be just as addictive.
Plus, inhaling from shared hoses has been shown to spread disease.
Yet some of the proponents do not seem aware of the health risk, or are ignoring it. Baucom, the co-owner of The Box Social, postures that hookahs present almost no health risk at all, despite the body of research showing otherwise.
“You can get the similar effects of smoking a cigarette but it’s not as bad for you and it doesn’t hurt your lungs,” said Baucom, 23. It’s like oxygen bars: it’s fun and different and social and you feel kind of exotic when you do it. I certainly don’t feel like I’m killing anybody by having it.”
Hookah pipes are usually ornate and have two to four hoses attached for sharing. The tobacco comes in flavors like mint, melon, mango, licorice. Inhaling, even for the first time, does not hurt or irritate the throat.
“People who are really against cigarettes and they think they’re cancer sticks, they don’t mind hookah,” said Tedi Doychinova, a senior at Riverview. “To them it’s not really a negative thing. Maybe it’s because of all the chemicals in cigarettes. This is just pure tobacco.”
Most hookah tobacco, called “shisha,” is imported and not regulated by the government, although minors are not allowed to purchase it. There are no warning labels. The packaging tends to refer to the unburned product and says, for example, there is no tar.
The University of Florida study showed that white male teenagers were the most likely to smoke hookah, and that African American teenagers were least likely.
Tracey Barnett, the lead researcher on the UF study, said she is planning future research to give insight into the misconceptions surrounding the health effects of hookah.
“That was the most fascinating thing to me,” Barnett said. “There is no safe way to use tobacco, and yet people think they have found it.”
The school nurse at North Port High said school health professionals are beginning to become aware of the problem. Her supervisor recently sent her a fact sheet on the dangers of hookah.
“We haven’t seen a lot of it here but I’m sure it’s coming,” said Denise Brislin. She has worked on getting students to stop smoking for years, and says the campaign has been successful partly because it has been able to brand smoking cigarettes as something dirty and unpleasant. The same message does not apply to hookah.
“The hookah pipe is very glamourous and sensual,” Brislin said. “It’s going to appeal to kids who wouldn't put a cigarette in their mouths or don’t want to hide in the bathroom to grab a quick smoke.”