 "Photo: Taylor Hill, Cartoonist")
The mild high and intimate social climate of hookah bars has customers, many college
students, pouring in their doors every weekend. But while business owners and customers
smile, health institutions raise eyebrows.
Hookah is a middle-eastern water pipe with a long tube used to smoke flavored, tobacco
called Shisha. About 400 hookah establishments have opened in recent years in the
United States, and that number is growing, especially around college towns, where
patrons are often too young to drink. The practice is legal, and since tobacco smoke
is first drawn through water, it is also commonly believed to be safer than smoking
cigarettes.
"Hookah is not meant to be inhaled like cigarette smoke," said Sofia Sarouidi, manager
and owner of Soussi Restaruant and Hookah Café in Adams Morgan, explaining the
ancient Middle Eastern practice. "It is filtered through a water pipe, so the smoke does
not go directly to the lungs. A lot of people in Egypt have been doing it almost everyday
for years."
While this may be so, public health officials warn that there may be unrecognized health
hazards to smoking hookah. Hookah smokers typically inhale longer and harder than
cigarette smokers, and scientists believe that this could expose hookah smokers to more
toxins and carcinogens than cigarette smokers. Though it isn't clear what percentage
of chemicals hookah smokers actually take in, studies like "An Emerging Health Risk
Behavior" from the Journal of Pediatrics claim that hookah smoke contains higher levels
of arsenic, lead, and nickel, 36 times more tar, and 15 times more carbon monoxide than
a single cigarette.
Research claims that all the nicotine from tobacco is not filtered out as assumed. A
recent issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter said that water pipe smokers inhale the
equivalent of 100 cigarettes or more during a single hookah session.
To many these statistics aren't surprising. Freshman chemical engineering major Camille
Camejo, who attended a hookah bar for a friend's birthday, said, "When I see all the
smoke that comes out, I could kind of believe that its dangerous."
Sophomore marketing major Cidney Bobbs, who has been to hookah bars a few times
with friends, said, "If the statistics are true they should definitely put a sign up because
obviously I didn't know."
Whatever the case, college students are taking to the hookah craze, something Sarouidi
calls the "new trend - a new style that everyone wants to try," and of course good
business.
"Its not something I do on a regular basis," said Aaron Johnson, a junior mechanical
engineering major, "but I enjoy it because I usually go with other people. The intimacy
associated with it and the fact that it is an exotic activity that you would not normally do
makes it interesting."
More than 17 hookah bars are established in the District of Columbia alone. One of the
newest, Nati Hookah Bar, opened in March just down the street from Howard University
at 2839 Georgia Ave. Proceed with Caution.
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