Hookah smoking lounges face curbs
By Patrick Jackson BBC News
A campaign is growing in the US to put the regulation of hookah smoking in public spaces on a par with cigarette controls.
If exotic-looking cigarette lounges that extolled the pleasures of flavoured tobacco suddenly appeared on US streets, health-conscious Americans would be demanding action from the authorities.
Why, then, tolerate bars or campus rooms where, health officials warn, users of the hookah water pipe may breath in 100-200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette during a typical one-hour session?
According to a New York Times article this week, legislators, college administrators and health advocates from California to Connecticut are taking action against what many of them call the newest front in an ever-shifting war on tobacco.
Gayle Slossberg, a state senator in Connecticut who is backing a local bill to control hookah lounges, believes many young Americans do not appreciate the health risks.
"They think that because it is smoking over water it is somehow just not going to harm them in any way," she told the BBC World Service.
However, for Connecticut student Erin Biel, the hookah means a chance to relax without having resort to alcohol, and the Yale University student says she can control her consumption.
Young people 'targeted'
One Connecticut hookah lounge, Beans and Leaves in Fairfield, sees college students and young people pouring in every weekend and on many week nights, according to an article in the Milford News.
They come to smoke but also to play cards and board games, listen to music, watch TV.
"We've seen a great rise in our state, and across other states, in hookah smoking in hookah lounges and they are targeted towards our young people," Senator Slossberg told the BBC.
She accepts many users only use the water pipe occasionally but points to the cigarette comparison - "like smoking five packs of cigarettes in one hour".
Her bill, approved for voting by the Connecticut General Assembly's public health committee in April, would build on Connecticut's current ban on smoking in public places such as restaurants.
It would stop any new hookah bar opening after 1 July while existing hookah bars would be allowed to continue operations until new health regulations come into effect on 1 July 2013.
'Self-regulated user'
For Ms Biel, the bill seems to have "almost come out of mid-air", unaccompanied by any public health awareness campaign.
She occasionally visits two hookah bars in New Haven, where Yale is located, but generally she smokes the hookah with her friends late at night in dorm rooms, as a way to relax and "spur conversation".
There is an attractive cultural element to the pipe, she points out: "We smoke it in our dorm rooms because we end up buying hookahs when we go abroad, so it's kind of something nice that we bring back from our travels too."
The strict teetotaller says she smokes the hookah "in a very self-regulated manner".
But the US government health warning is very clear: "Hookah smoking is not a safe alternative to smoking cigarettes."
And two other states, Boston and Maine, have already ended exemptions in indoor-smoking laws that allowed hookah bars to thrive.
web page Jesus....when is the war against smoking going to end. I don't get why they need to regulate Hookah bars.
You go into a hookah bar to smoke a hookah. You go in, they ID you, and you rent a hookah and smoke it.
If you don't want to smoke a hookah, or don't want to breathe second-hand hookah smoke--then don't go to the hookah lounge.
Seems simple enough. The whole draw of hookah bars is that they are places to smoke hookahs---thats why they are called hookah bars.
I don't understand how that needs to be targeted.
Are people in this country so stupid that they believe that smoking hookah tobacco is any different that smoking a pipe or cigar---its still proven to be carcinogenic, and you still have to be an adult to indulge in this. Are adults in this country that incapable of making an informed decision. We need to force hookah bars to put up signs that smoking tobacco out of hookahs is shown to cause cancer.
Duhhhh.......
This is seriously stupid, and a total waste of tax-payers money. This woman who put this bill together is a total moron.
Do we really need to target hookah bars, I mean rally, are people that stupid to think that smoking tobacco one way is safer than another way.
And most of these bars are in college towns.
Is this woman suggesting the movers and shakers of the next few generations---college students---best and brightest---are so ill-informed to think that smoking tobacco out of a huge bong isn't good for them.
Really lady.
What an idiot.
On a sidenote, I went to a Hookah bar in columbus a few times, called the shishah lounge. It was alright---but nothing ground-breaking. Give me some marijuana every once in a blue moon(but not for awhile anymore.)---at least that gets you a buzz.
Hookah smoke tastes and smells good, it produces a mellow mood---but its not something that really produces any profound effects.
again, this is stupidity.
I get it, you hate smokers....but now you are starting to attack businesses whose main draw is to provide a place to smoke in a traditional way. The whole idea of the business is to provide a place to smoke. Thats the draw. So its not like you are attacking a restaurant who is letting smokers pollute teh air.
What the hell is the point of going to a hookah bar if you are against smoking. How are your rights being violated. You went into the establishment. Its pretty clear what goes on there.
Utter stupidity.
