Youth Smoking Hookah

As parent’s get their children ready for another school year, researchers say there is something that should be on adult’s radar. A new report shows more young people are smoking hookah, a water pipe used to smoke Al Fakher tobacco online.

The reason for the increase:

The study looks at the rise in hookah use in California, and sites several reasons for the jump in interest.

“This rise is particularly alarming because it’s happening in California, a state that leads the nation in tobacco control,” said Wael Al-Delaimy, MD, PhD, associate professor and chief of the Division of Global Health in the UCSD Department of Family and Preventive Medicine. “While cigarette smoking has decreased nationwide and in California, reports of ever using hookah have increased, especially among adolescent and young adults.”

The numbers:

The study, put out by the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine showed that “from 2005 to 2008, hookah use among all adults increased by more than 40 percent, and by 2008, hookah use in California was much higher among young adults – 24.5 percent among men, 10 percent among women – than it was among all adults – 11.2 percent among men, 2.8 percent among women.”

The new fad

Hookah is popular in the Middle East, where it is part of their culture. Hookah has become a social norm and a way of smoking with several friends. In California, people can’t smoke indoors but hookah use in allowed at certain indoor venues.

Next steps:

“More specific studies are warranted but we urge policymakers to consider laws that would ban hookah lounges, thus eliminating the implication that hookah smoking is safer and more socially acceptable than cigarette smoking,” said Al-Delaimy.