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Sunday, November 18, 2012

Teenage hookah smoking rates must be reduced, experts say


Hookah smoker
Public health experts say in a new report that more must be done to curb teenage hookah smoking.(Bruno Vincent / Getty Images)


While the lion's share of youth anti-smoking efforts has focused on cigarettes, a new report in the CDC journal Preventing Chronic Disease suggests more needs to be done to reduce the number of teens smoking flavored tobacco from hookahs.

According to a recent survey cited in the report, 18.5% of 12th-grade students admitted to using a hookah in the previous year. And what's particularly concerning to the study authors, led by Daniel Morris of the Oregon Health Authority's public health division, is that many young people don't seem to recognize that hookah use carries serious health risks: Hookah smoke contains many of the same toxins as cigarettes and has been associated with a similar laundry list of diseases such as lung cancer and respiratory illness.


But the news is not all bad. The authors report that the predictors of who will smoke hookah -- including how socially acceptable the practice is, whether a family member does it, and whether the smoker perceives use as harmful or not -- are the same as those for cigarette smoking. This implies that the same interventions that have been so successful in reducing cigarette smoking will work with hookah smoking as well.

What are those interventions? For one, Morris and his team argue that prices for shisha, the flavored tobacco commonly smoked from hookahs, should be higher, calling such an increase "the single most powerful intervention to reduce youth smoking." Currently, they write, the price for a pound of hookah pipe tobacco is $22 lower than that for cigarette tobacco, a gap they believe must be narrowed.

Other interventions include more persuasive warnings, like the graphic labels used on cigarettes, and the removal of sweet flavorings from shisha -- a ban that already exists for cigarettes. In addition, the authors argue, because shisha is often smoked in designated hookah bars, which tend to be exempt from "no smoking" rules, the rules must be changed to eliminate that exemption.

Source: Chicago Tribune 

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2 comments:

  1. This is absolutely stupid. If people want to smoke, let them smoke. Stop trying to ban everything that's not healthy or is potentially harmful. Either that, or go out and try to ban fast food, cigarettes, drinking, driving, extreme sports, walking in a big city, etc.

    You people have such a fascist mindset, and it's pathetic that you try to stop everything that people enjoy.

    Increase the prices? Oh, so you want people to be unhealthy AND broke. Morons.

    Hookah is a pleasurable experience and is umpteen times less harmful than cigarettes. You don't burn shisha tobacco, which prevents the tar from accumulating in your lungs. Nicotine is one of the very few chemicals you actually get from the vapors of hookah (Note: It's not "smoke" technically, because smoke comes from burning, and you don't burn the shisha tobacco).

    I can't believe you people want to ban this. It's a great alternative to cigarettes, and ever since I started, I quit smoking completely and have cut down on my alcohol consumption. I no longer wake up with coughing fits and I don't hack up phlegm anymore.

    It's one of the greatest things to happen to my health, and you should be happy that it's NOT banned. The more harmless (nearly) activities you ban, the more likely it is people will indulge in more dangerous things. For instance, look at what happened when alcohol was prohibited. Crime rate skyrocketed, authority figures became corrupt, organized crime blossomed, etc. Nothing positive happens when you try to ban things you don't like. It's plain stupidity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is absolutely stupid. If people want to smoke, let them smoke. Stop trying to ban everything that's not healthy or is potentially harmful. Either that, or go out and try to ban fast food, cigarettes, drinking, driving, extreme sports, walking in a big city, etc.

    You people have such a fascist mindset, and it's pathetic that you try to stop everything that people enjoy.

    Increase the prices? Oh, so you want people to be unhealthy AND broke. Morons.

    Hookah is a pleasurable experience and is umpteen times less harmful than cigarettes. You don't burn shisha tobacco, which prevents the tar from accumulating in your lungs. Nicotine is one of the very few chemicals you actually get from the vapors of hookah (Note: It's not "smoke" technically, because smoke comes from burning, and you don't burn the shisha tobacco).

    I can't believe you people want to ban this. It's a great alternative to cigarettes, and ever since I started, I quit smoking completely and have cut down on my alcohol consumption. I no longer wake up with coughing fits and I don't hack up phlegm anymore.

    It's one of the greatest things to happen to my health, and you should be happy that it's NOT banned. The more harmless (nearly) activities you ban, the more likely it is people will indulge in more dangerous things. For instance, look at what happened when alcohol was prohibited. Crime rate skyrocketed, authority figures became corrupt, organized crime blossomed, etc. Nothing positive happens when you try to ban things you don't like. It's plain stupidity.

    ReplyDelete