Contrary to popular belief, hookah smoke is not safe

Editor,

The beautiful picture on Page One of Tuesday's Daily Lobo was a great shot of spring arriving on campus - a young couple, a picnic cooler, a beautiful spring day. We hate to be the ones to offer a discouraging word, but someone has got to do it. The only thing about this beautiful scene that calls for comment is the hookah.

At Campus Office of Substance Abuse Prevention, we work hard to offer students science-based information they can use to make decisions about the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs. Scare tactics, overbearing lecturing and other negative means to persuade students to adopt healthy behaviors are an insult to those we strive to serve.

Furthermore, those tactics don't work. I think our students respond best to straightforward information on alcohol and other drugs and opportunities to examine their own behaviors in light of that information. So please indulge us as we provide some fact-based information about the negative health aspects of hookah use, because we've found there are a lot of misperceptions circulating among students.

Contrary to popular belief, the water in the hookah has no ability to cleanse or purify the smoke of any of its harmful components, including cancer-causing chemicals present in tobacco smoke. Students who select the supposedly safe smoke of a hookah are sucking in the chemical equivalent of dozens of cigarettes complete with the tars and other substances found in tobacco like carbon monoxide. Students who smoke hookah at hookah lounges are also subjecting themselves to the products of combustion from the charcoal pellet used to keep the smoking mixture burning, and they are also at risk for contracting oral herpes and other transmissible diseases as well.

Just a few weeks ago at Colorado State University, several students developed mouth herpes shortly after attending their first sessions at a Fort Collins hookah bar, according to Jane Higgins, infection control physician at the university's Hartshorn Health Services.

Research has shown that one hour of smoking a hookah pipe exposes the user to 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke of a single cigarette. This is according to a report available at BacchusNetwork.org. The smoke also has high levels of arsenic, lead and nickel, 36 times the tar of a single cigarette and 15 times the carbon monoxide. Even herbal shisha contains tars and carcinogens.

Hookahs are increasingly becoming popular because of the sociability of sharing a pipe with friends and because college students believe it's healthier than cigarettes. We want students to know the facts, and we're always happy to talk to students who would like more information. If students choose to continue using hookahs when they know these facts, that's their business. But as for the perfect accompaniment to a picnic, we'd rather deal with the ants.

Reuben Estrada and

John Steiner

Campus Office of Substance Abuse Prevention