HOOKAH

One of my new year's resolutions was to stop smoking hookah so much. I was kind of a hookah fiend. Ever since I first got introduced to it in high school, I couldn't get enough of it. I knew that smoking cigarettes were bad for you and smoking weed was out of the question, so smoking hookah was the best of options. Or so it seemed. Hookah was still kind of a new thing to me in college. But being desi, everyone I knew was doing it so it caught on really quickly. Every now and then someone would tell me that it's bad for you, probably worse than cigarettes, but I never believed them. Then the hookah pens came out, and I was like great. I don't even need to pack tobacco in a bowl, and there's no smoke involved - it's just water vapor, so it can't possibly be harmful for you. Wrong.

Hookah is so much worse than I thought. Here are the top 5 reason why my new year's resolution was made.

1. Although most hookah pens claim to be tobacco free, they are packed with the same stuff found in cigarettes. Which, FYI, are also the same stuff that kill mice and insects. Gross! This fact alone makes me never want to touch a hookah pen ever again.
   
2. Sticking with hookah pens, reason number two to stop smoking hookah is that both sheesha and hookah pens contain nicotine. Granted they have slightly less nicotine than a cigarette, apparently even the smallest amount of nicotine can be highly addictive and fatal. Is smoking for an hour or so really worth wasting your entire life for?
   
3. Honestly though, how bad could one hour really be? I would always argue that people who smoke, do it on a daily basis and I only smoke a couple times month. However, research shows that "the amount of smoke inhaled during a typical hookah session is about 90,000 milliliters (ml), compared with 500–600 ml inhaled when smoking a cigarette" also "an hour-long hookah smoking session involves 200 puffs, while smoking an average cigarette involves only 20 puffs." That's like smoking 10 cigarettes within an hour. I've heard of people smoking a pack a day, but 10 within an hour - makes me want to puke just thinking about it.
4. Hookah is bad for you, it's actually worse than smoking cigarettes. I know you don't believe me, I didn't even believe this at first either. But, research doesn't lie. "Compared to a single cigarette, hookah smoke is known to contain higher levels of arsenic, lead, and nickel." I don't know what that technically means, but isn't arsenic poison? Also, hookah has "20-30 times more tar than a single cigarette and 15 time more carbon dioxide." So hookah pretty much contains all the same drawbacks as cigarettes and more.
5. Most important reason to stop. Hookah causes cancer! According to the CDC (Center of Disease Control) the tobacco used while smoking hookah has high levels of carbon monoxide, metals, and cancer-causing chemicals. Even after it has passed through water, the smoke from a hookah has high levels of these toxic agents. These can ultimately lead to cause lung, bladder, and oral cancers.

I hope this makes all of us smoke a little less hookah this year.