Hookah / Hubbly – Just because it’s social doesn’t mean it’s safe

A hookah or hubbly is a type of water pipe that uses charcoal to burn a tobacco mixture. The tobacco mixture comes in a variety of flavors. The user pulls the tobacco smoke through water and into a mouthpiece to inhale. Hookah smoking is typically practiced in groups with the same mouthpiece passed from person to person.

A recent study found that a typical hookah session delivers approximately 125 times the smoke, 25 times the tar, 2.5 times the nicotine and 10 times the carbon monoxide as smoking a cigarette.

Does that mean that smoking hookah is worse than smoking cigarettes? Researchers are still looking into that, but part of the reason the toxins are so much higher in a hookah session is that people spend a longer time smoking the hookah in one sitting than it takes to smoke a single cigarette. On the other hand, people who smoke cigarettes tend to smoke more often, so it is hard to compare how hookah and cigarette smoking habits affect a person overall.

The bottom line is that smoking hookah is not safe. A lot of people think that the water in the hookah somehow filters out the dangerous chemicals in tobacco, but that is just not true. Hookah smoke is still tobacco smoke. Even if you are not taking puffs from the hookah yourself, there is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke, whether from cigarettes or water pipes.

Cigarettes are becoming less popular with teenagers, but other types of tobacco, including hookah and e-cigarettes, are becoming more popular.