Hands off my hookah!

Smoking hookah is growing in popularity here in Oregon, and that has Oregon health officials on edge. Not because they are worried that smoking is dangerous—that fact we know—but from the fact that the hookah is rising in popularity amongst teens.

Access to hookahs is easy to come by, both from the addition of hookah lounges and the increasing availability of personal hookahs for purchase.

Smoking in the U.S. often carries negative connotations these days. Whether you are smoking cigarettes, cigars or a gigantic joint, people just tend to frown on it. There are even negative connotations for the devices used to smoke. Pipes, for example, are typically associated with marijuana these days, not Sherlock Holmes.

Regardless of whether you smoke or not, you will encounter most types of smoking somewhere along your college career whether you’re walking through the misty cigarette clouds across the park blocks or witnessing marijuana pluming out of a concert crowd like a whale popping up for air. It is all around us.

More recently “The Man” has set his sights on the hookah—a style of smoking that has become more popular in Oregon recently with the rise in hookah lounges around the state. According to the Oregon Health Authority, a hookah lounge is a smoke shop that both sells hookahs and offers a lounge area in which you can smoke said hookahs.

For anyone unfamiliar with the hookah, it is a device originating from the Middle East that cools the smoke inhaled by sucking it down through water and then through a long hose. For this reason it is sometimes called a “water pipe.” They are often elaborate, with various colors and designs, and range in size from as small as a foot or two in height to very large.

Hookah is considered to be a social activity, as it is publicly smoked in hookah lounges that are sometimes decorated with fancy rugs, puffy couches and mood lighting. It is meant to be a relaxing social activity. You can even do tricks with it, such as blow rings of smoke, and if you are really skilled you can capture smoke in a soap bubble. It’s something you do with friends.

“I don’t really like that I’m putting smoke into my lungs. It’s probably not the best thing for my body. But it’s kind of cool trying to blow smoke rings, and it’s a nice way to relax,” said Camila Stark, a 21-year-old economics major here at

Portland State.

Hookah shops usually offer a large range of tobacco flavors that can be very exotic at times. A 2010 OHA Indoor Clean Air Act study found flavors such as peach, melon, and pumpkin pie. The tobacco smoked in a hookah, called “shisha,” is often just flavored tobacco.

So, really, it is meant to be a stylish and attractive form of smoking.

That is exactly what has Oregon health officials worried—because everyone knows already that smoking tobacco is dangerous and can kill you. In fact, a statistic released by the Tobacco Prevention and Education Program, part of the Department of Human Services, stated that 22 percent of all Oregon deaths in 2005 had smoking listed as a contributor to death.

So while hookah is no less dangerous than any other kind of tobacco product, it’s also one of the few types of smoking that is generally still restricted to indoor smoking like lounges and the comfort of one’s home. Unlike cigarettes that are very easy to find smoked out in public, Hookah is much more contained and regulated.

Cigarettes are small and can be smoked on the go. Trying to smoke a hookah while walking would be very difficult and probably dangerous. It is just not a mobile device.

Unfortunately the OHA seems to be getting a little ahead of themselves in what might not be the right direction. Tom Parker, communications director for Oregon Partnership, a statewide nonprofit promoting drug and alcohol awareness, had this to say about hookah lounges in an OHA press release: “They’re a training ground for going to bars, drinking and illicit drug use.”

It’s not like it’s a crack house; in fact, according to the OHA you can’t even buy alcohol at a hookah lounge.  I’m not sure how a place that doesn’t serve alcohol can really be a primer for a bar. This seems like saying an Easy-Bake Oven is a trainer for Le Cordon Bleu.

Now while it’s perfectly reasonable to say that hookah lounges are not providing a healthy environment for your lungs, it’s a bit of a stretch to say that it’s a gateway to hard drugs. This doesn’t seem like a healthy attitude to have, especially when hookahs are found in lounges and houses while cigarettes are still found in your path as you walk outside.

“If the health officials want to stop people from abusing drugs and alcohol, I’m pretty sure there are a ton of better places to look than hookah lounges,” Stark said.

All in all, hookah and hookah lounges are here to stay, and can provide a nice smoking experience that you can enjoy without getting your door kicked in. It is up to the individual to decide whether or not they want to partake despite the health risks. The OHA should worry less about the rise in regulated and legal tobacco use, and more about dangerous drugs such as cocaine or meth.

The hookah is being made out to be the next social villain. Let’s all practice some common sense and just let the hookah be. ?