Up in smoke
James Cosgrave prefers the fruity flavors of apple, mango and strawberry. He doesn’t like the weird flavors like coffee or vanilla – they don’t feel as smooth when the smoke hit his lungs.
Cosgrave is describing smoking flavored tobacco filtered through water through a device known as a hookah. Smoking hookah is rapidly becoming a popular social activity among college-age students, despite the health risk.
‘It’s just something I do with my friends,’ Cosgrave, a freshman in SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry said. ‘It’s relaxing, just hanging out and smoking.’
Hookah smokers are joining cigarette smokers outside the dorms and apartments on South campus – as smoking is illegal in any University building – as more and more students can be seen sitting around the strange looking contraption.
Kevin Davis got into hookah smoking back in his hometown of Baltimore, Md., where he visited a hookah bar on a regular basis.
‘It’s really relaxing, more so than regular smoking,’ said Davis, a freshman in the College of Arts and Science. ‘Now my friends and I just sit outside Skyhall [on South campus] and smoke and hang out. Though we don’t do it as often in the winter, it’s too cold outside.’
The sociality of hookah is also evidenced on a national level, with hookah bars beginning to open up in major cities as it becomes a trendy activity among teenagers and 20-somethings.
A New York state ban as well as national bans on smoking in bars has had a detrimental effect on hookah bars and retailers opening up. There are no hookah bars or hookah retailers in Syracuse, but students are finding ways to get a hold of their own.
‘I was using my friends’ hookah so often that I finally bought my own,’ said Cosgrave. ‘But still, I always smoke with friends.’
The structure of the hookah allows the user to inhale more smoke, which creates more pronounced physical effects than smoking a cigarette or cigar.
‘It’s not a pot high or a drunk buzz,’ said Debbie Burkhoff, a sophomore advertising design major. ‘It’s something nice in between, and it’s not addictive like cigarettes.’
The hookah ‘buzz’ is one of its main appeals, as it is legal for all ages, unlike alcohol and marijuana. Besides socializing, hookah also offers a unique smoking experience unlike cigarettes or cigars.
Hookahs are mainly used to smoke flavored tobacco, which comes in a number of flavors ranging from watermelon to mint and licorice. The majority of flavors are fruit ones, like strawberry, peach and cherry, but there are also more unique ones like chocolate and coconut. Each ‘brick’ of tobacco usually costs about $10 and lasts for about 25 uses.
‘Apple and watermelon are really good,’ Cosgrave said. ‘The smoke tastes good and goes down smooth.’
Davis agrees, saying the flavor is what makes hookah so appealing.
‘It’s more like a cigar in that it has a variety of flavors,’ Davis said. ‘If you hold the smoke in your mouth, you can savor the flavor and taste more.’
Even the hookah itself looks intriguing, with its complex structure that delivers almost the same effects as one cigarette.
Originating in India, the hookah is made up of a bowl that holds the tobacco and coal on top, a jar at the bottom to hold the water used for filtering and a tube that connects the bowl and jar. A gasket placed near the bottom clears smoke from the water jar. A hose with a mouthpiece attaches to the body to draw the smoke out.
The tobacco, usually wrapped in tin foil, is placed on top of hot coals in the bowl of the hookah and the water jar is filled. When a person inhales from the hose, the air heats the tobacco and it travels down into the water and back up to the hose, where a person gets a lungful of flavored smoke – if everything is prepared right.
‘If you don’t pack the tobacco in the tin foil right, you end up inhaling coal,’ Burkhoff said. ‘That really hurts your throat and lungs.’
Cosgrave added sometimes he adds ice to the water so that the smoke doesn’t burn his lungs as much.
Despite its different flavors and elaborate smoking process that makes it appealing to many young people, some experts say hookah has the same detrimental health effects as cigarettes, and in some instances remains even more harmful.
Tibor Palfai, a psychology professor at Syracuse University who specializes in drugs and human behavior, said that when one smokes hookah, one inhales almost 100 times more smoke than with a cigarette.
‘Hookah is not a solution to smoking,’ Palfai said. ‘The water cools off the smoke but a lot of harmful things in the tobacco aren’t water soluble, so you’re still inhaling them.’
Though an extensive amount of research on the effects of hookah smoking has yet to be done, there are mixed feelings about the health effects among hookah users.
Niko Rechul, who began smoking hookah in high school, has noticed hookah has affected his workouts.
‘If I try to work out the next day after smoking hookah I feel a little winded,’ Rechul, a senior management major, said. ‘A little more than usual.’
Cosgrave disagrees, saying that as long as one keeps exercising, it’s easy to feel healthy while maintaining the practice.
‘As long as you have that balance and don’t smoke hookah habitually and go out for a jog every once in awhile, I don’t think it’s that unhealthy,’ Cosgrave said. ‘I haven’t really felt any bad effects.’
People can also choose to increase potential health risks even more by adding alcohol instead of water in the hookah or using marijuana instead of tobacco.
‘If you put pot in the hookah instead of tobacco, it has the same bad effects but obviously worse,’ Palfai said. ‘It’s like smoking an entire joint in one go.’
In spite of hookah’s potentially dangerous health effects, more and more students keep gathering around the hookah and enjoying smoking the tobacco, whether it’s apple, strawberry – or whatever fruity flavor a practiced hookah smoker has in mind for the next time he or she feels like lighting up.
Once I got my own hookah I smoked every day,’ Burkhoff said. ‘It’s a nice buzz, that’s not illegal or addictive – and it tastes good.’
Published on March 4, 2008 at 12:00 pm
