A hookah pipe, also called a water pipe, is a device used to smoke flavoured tobacco. It has a few main parts:
- A bowl that holds the tobacco and heats it using charcoal.
- A water container that the smoke goes through to get filtered.
- A hose (or more than one hose) with a mouthpiece to breathe in the smoke.
The charcoal heats the tobacco, and the smoke travels through the water and into the hose, where the person breathes it in through the mouthpiece.
TARGETS CHILDREN
Hookah tobacco often has sweet flavours like fruit, coconut, mint, or coffee. These flavours make the tobacco taste and smell nice, which can make it more tempting for young people to try.
NOT A SAFE OPTION
Some people wrongly believe that smoking hookah makes tobacco safer by removing harmful stuff like nicotine. Even though the smoke feels smoother because it goes through water, it still has the same dangerous chemicals that can cause cancer.
Also, people who smoke hookah might breathe in more of these harmful chemicals – like tar and metals – because they must breathe in harder and for longer when using a hookah.
HOOKAH VS. CIGARETTES
A normal cigarette has between 7 and 22 milligrams of nicotine, but only about 1 milligram gets into the person who smokes it. One bowl of hookah has as much nicotine as a whole pack of 20 cigarettes. Nicotine is a drug that can make people addicted, so smoking hookah can be just as addictive as smoking cigarettes.
Some hookah products say they don’t have tar in them, but this is not true. Tar forms when the tobacco is burned or heated, which happens during hookah smoking.
Also, the charcoal used to heat the tobacco gives off harmful things like carbon monoxide and metals, which can cause cancer. This makes hookah smoking even more dangerous.
SMOKE INHALATION
When a person smokes hookah for 45 minutes, they breathe in about 90,000 millilitres of smoke. In comparison, someone who smokes one cigarette breathes in only about 500 to 600 millilitres of smoke.
A person smoking hookah also breathes in much more harmful stuff — about 9 times more carbon monoxide and nearly twice as much nicotine as someone smoking one cigarette.
CUASES CANCER & HEART DISEASE
Smoking hookah can cause many of the same health problems as smoking cigarettes. These include serious illnesses like cancer and heart disease.
SPREADS ILLNESS
Smoking a hookah is usually done in a group, where people take turns using the same pipe and mouthpiece. Because everyone shares it, germs and diseases can easily spread from one person to another.
DRUG ABUSE
In South Africa, children as young as six years old have become addicted to dangerous drugs like dagga, mandrax, and heroin. These drugs are often put into hookah pipes and smoked instead of tobacco.
RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH SMOKING A HOOKAH PIPE
- Cancer
- Addiction to nicotine
- Addiction to dagga, heroin, or other substances
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- Pregnancy risks
- Lung disease
- Spreading illnesses via sharing of mouthpieces when smoking
