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how harmful is waterpipe smoking?
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| Psy-T |
israel's government has started an anti smoking campaign that covers waterpipe smoking aswell as cigarette smoking several years ago, basically they added the usual anti-smoking warnings that used to be on cigarettes to waterpipe tobacco products (the same ones lol, some of them explicitly state they're referring to cigarettes :p).
so what's the problem? the problem is i've yet to find valid research proving how carciogenic waterpipe smoking is when compared to cigarette smoking.
the article "hookah" on wikipedia touches on the subject lightly and references 2 sources for the relavant claims (7&9):
refernce 9 leads to a news article posted on an anti smoking site operated by the washington state department of health that features nothing but sensationalistic bias and no references, methodologies, or anything else necessary in a 'valid' research.
and reference 7 leads to a research publication that shows distinct ignorance to the subject matter: in a section entitled "composition of narghile and its smoke aerosol" they state:
| quote: | | The composition of the tobacco used in WPS(WaterPipe Smoking) is variable and not well standardized. The nicotine content of water-pipe tobacco has been reported to be 2% to 4%, in comparison with 1% to 3% for cigarettes. |
which is generally false, the nicotine content of waterpipe tobacco in the globally exported products of the major waterpipe tobacco companies is 0.5% and has been standardized to 0.5% for 9 years at the very least (the time i started smoking).
considering the importance of nicotine in the comparison, such fallible data leads me to believe that the rest of the research publication pretaining to nicotine is necessarily flawed, hence disqualifying it from being 'valid' research.
some more interesting questions:
if in fact there is no valid research that proves waterpipe smoking is harmful to a certain degree of x... why has israel's government included it in its anti-smoking campaign?
why did the united states' department of health (or maybe it's only washington state's department of health) 'support' this information?
and why does a department of health website publication not list references, methodologies, et cetera to begin with? |
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| Sunsnail |
| Are you asking if waterpipe tobacco is more/less harmful than cigarette tobacco, or the method of smoking it? |
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| pkcRAISTLIN |
haha. you cant have it both ways. either the US government is in the pockets of the tobacco lobby or theyre sensationalising the dangers of all forms of smoking ;)
i guarantee you its in the ballpark as regular cigarette smoking in terms of danger. nicotine levels are irrelevant because its not the nicotine that does the damage.
smoking is bad for you, regardless of who has done the shoddy research :p |
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| Lilith |
Think I've seen just about everything smoked through a waterpipe, sometimes they stick tobacco in there too! hehe! :eyespop:
Probably a bit of a stab at the pot heads on the side while theyre in the mood for banning and villifying things. |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by Sunsnail
Are you asking if waterpipe tobacco is more/less harmful than cigarette tobacco, or the method of smoking it? |
neither, i'm asking how harmful waterpipe smoking is in comparison to cigarette smoking (among other things).
with waterpipes, you have to take into account the molasses, the flavouring substances, and the charcoals effects on the compound (and sometimes, the effects of a 'quick-lighting charcoal'{which includes chemicals not existing in a standard charcoal] on the compound instead).
with cigarettes, you have to take into account the thousands of chemicals involved, about 80 of which are known carciogenics iirc, and the effects of the flame on them.
and in both cases, what 'matters' most, is what you actually inhale, not necessarily everything that's generated by these compounds; the fact that you don't 'breathe in' after inhaling the smoke when smoking a waterpipe might be another important variable in a comprehensive, valid research aswell, among many other things. |
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| shaolin_Z |
Well, to answer the 'question' in the thread title, not really. And I think you mean bong :p. Sheeshak/Hookah/whatever essentially operate the same principle as bongs as far as filteration goes (probably the other way around though, since bongs came later I believe :p). If you were to smoke tobacco through a bong (which I don't recommend btw, f'n nasty), it filters out 90-something % of the tar in the smoke. So you're getting a pretty clean hit. But if you smoke ALOT and VERY OFTEN, then it will have some observable effects on your health in the long run and, boy, does it up your lung capacity and stamina. I used to be a total pot head back in the day, and I mean TOTAL pot head. I spent all my money (from working almost fulltime, not pocket money) on it, and split anywhere from and eigth to a quarter with a friend daily (of good Cali kind bud/dro) back when I used to live in the Bay Area. After a couple of years of doing that, I couldn't do jack during work outs (Kung Fu, mostly Wu Shu though). Before I started smoking, I could do 25-30 vertical pushups without breaking a sweat (I started when I was 18). Now I can barely do 5, and I quit a while ago (although I do enjoy the occasional blunt/bong rip/vapourizer hit). But I also haven't been regularly working out for the past couple of years, so that factors in too. But smoking a load did up my stamina and lung capacity, and I went down from 25-30 to 5. As long as you don't smoke way to often, you should be fine. Then again, when you're using Shishah/Hookah, you use coals to 'free base' the tobacco, as opposed to burning it with a flame, so it's virtually harmless. I guess I should also mention that I also started smoking cigarettes like a chimney soon after becoming a pot head. That probably had alot more to do with my ed lungs and stamina than pot.
The cleanest way to smoke pot is vapourizing it (it works really well if you pass the smoke through a chamber full of ice on the way, you don't even feel it as you inhale it, the harshness of the smoke in your throat that is). |
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| shaolin_Z |
Haha! The PDD potheads finally rear their stoner heads. :p
(Although I've known about you being a pothead for a while now PKC ;) :p ) |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by shaolin_Z
Haha! The PDD potheads finally rear their stoner heads. :p
(Although I've known about you being a pothead for a while now PKC ;) :p ) |
heh, i suppose i can't speak for pkc or anyone else, but i'm not talking about pot, i'm talking about flavoured molasses tobacco, smoked in what i locally refer to as a nargila, and globally as either a shisha, a hookah, or a waterpipe.
i definitely do smoke too much from a health perspective regardless of the data i may or may not find (any substance is harmful to your health when used in excess, right?), between 6 and 10 hours daily, i'd say, and as you may have already gathered from this sentence, i'm not looking for this data to determine what my smoking habits should be like in the future, but rather as a general curiosity. |
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| shaolin_Z |
| Yeah, I already know you're not a pot head and just smoke Shisha. That comment was directed at others here ;). But yeah, that's quite a bit of Shisha you smoke there. I owned (well more like someone forgot it at my place) for six months or so. I smoked pretty frequently, and I didn't notice any negative health effects. I have no clue what the effects of the amount you smoke are though, probably not too good in the long run. |
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| NeoPhono |
The "key" to just about everything is moderation. Smoking from a waterpipe versus a cigarette will have advantages and disadvantages, but there is no form of inhaling smoke that is not harmful in some way. If you're an occasional/social smoker, you're not really going to see harmful effects, especially if you're healthy otherwise.
If you'd like to read a report taking another look at the WHO report on waterpipes, give this a shot.
http://www.jnrbm.com/content/5/1/17 |
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| Psy-T |
thanks neophono, highly appreciated. |
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| Psy-T |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
haha. you cant have it both ways. either the US government is in the pockets of the tobacco lobby or theyre sensationalising the dangers of all forms of smoking ;) |
i indeed can, seeing as none of the major international players in the shisha tobacco market have an affiliation with Big Tobacco. :D |
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