Shisha Use Popular Among Young Adults and Teens in U.S.
By Daniel Gil/ Contributing Writer
Shisha has found a home far from its birthplace in the Middle East. Its new home is within the dusty college dorms, tiny sublets, and shared apartments of young adults in the United States.
An alternative to cigarettes, the tobacco-based product has enjoyed a relative increase in usage among the young adult demographic over the past few years, according to the CDC (Center for Disease Control). Less stigmatized than cigarettes, amongst high schoolers and college students, smoking shisha with a hookah pipe is viewed as a more social activity in the United States, but not without its health risks.
Hookah is a typically glass-made instrument which uses stems to inhale either smoke or water vapor which is lightly filtered through a basin filled with water. Shisha, on the other hand is a tobacco concoction with is smoked out of the hookah pipe. The inhaled vapor isn’t as rough as cigarette smoke which usually makes for a more relaxing and more lengthy smoke session than other tobacco-based products might.
What tends to be the case however, is that hookah sessions are looked at, not just as a more sociable alternative, but also as a healthier one — and although the former may be true — this is certainly not the case for the latter.
According to a 2005 study by the World Health Organization (WHO), smoking shisha from a hookah pipe for a 20 to 80 minute period has the same effects on the user as smoking and inhaling the smoke of 100 cigarettes.
Despite this, young adults continue to use shisha, which adds more flavor and is typically smoked along with fruit.
A 2011 study conducted by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center found that roughly 40 percent of the the respondents surveyed reported having smoked tobacco from a hookah before and 46 percent reported having smoked a cigarette before. However, 22 percent of the students who identified themselves as “hookah users” said they’d never tried a cigarette before, suggesting they are looked at differently.
Overall, hookah use among teenagers in high school is roughly the same between males and females at 4.8 percent, according to the CDC’s 2016 data on tobacco use. However, teenage girls tend to smoke hookah more prevalently than men do. Over 5 percent of female respondents said they had used hookah at least once in the past 30 days as opposed to 4.8 percent among males high schoolers who smoke more tobacco products on average than their female peers. The same CDC date shows 23.5 percent of boys in high school smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days and 17 percent of females did.
“My guess is that young people in the US are smoking shisha more because it honestly tastes pretty good and is an easy way to relax and socialize…” said John Cronin, a student at George Washington University. “While it doesn’t necessarily have a good reputation, it certainly is less stigmatized than cigarettes.”
Cronin recently returned from a semester in Jordan where he says hookah is smoked much more regularly than in the states. “It’s a major part of life there so it was nearly unavoidable. My Jordanian friends would take me out to cafes and we’d smoke and watch soccer games and it was just a very easy way to be social and meet new people while I was there.”
The relatively recent increase in college-aged people who use hookah has its roots dug into the social life of young adults. Hookah bars and lounges can be found in most major cities in the United States, touting signs on weekend nights similar to happy hour advertisements. “College Nights” for students is a commonly seen advertisement for establishments in Washington D.C. who have managed to capitalize on hookah usage among young adults.
Cronin wishes shisha had a larger role in US society as it was “such a nice way to decompress after a stressful day, watch a game and hangout with friends….” If “shisha was a bigger part of our culture here, we might be less inclined to assume negative things about smokers of any kind because smoking would be more closely related to positive social scenarios.”