“Shisha 200 times DANGEROUS than a cigarette” say Middle East experts

Three leading experts from across the Middle East have warned that excluding “shisha bars” when England goes smokefree on July 1 could worsen the grave inequalities in health that already affect ethnic minorities.


Shisha / hookas /smoke pipe


Owners of shisha bars and cafes, which provide Arab style waterpipes to customers, are asking to be exempt from the law when it comes into force. However new research suggests that the waterpipes have three additional lethal risks over the risks of smoking cigarettes:

1. Flavoured tobacco is smoked over coals and fumes from these fuels add new toxins to the already dangerous smoke.
2. Shisha smokers inhale up to 200 times more smoke in a single shisha session that they would from a cigarette.

Far from discriminating against ethnic minorities, any exemption for indoor shisha smoking would only worsen health inequalities, say experts. Following the recent publication by the American Lung Association “An emerging Deadly Trend: Waterpipe Tobacco Use” (1) Mostafa Mohamed, Professor of Community Medicine in Cairo said,

"Heat sources that are commonly used in Shisha pipes to burn the tobacco are likely to increase the health risks because when they burn they produce their own toxins. Shisha smokers and those around them are put at greater risk.”

Recently, however, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report on the health consequences of shisha use and it has proved to be an eye-opener. A commonly held belief is that shisha is harmless because the smoke first passes through water before it is inhaled. Theshisha smoker may inhale as much smoke during one session as a cigarette smoker would inhale consuming 100 or more cigarettes. Even after it has passed through water, the smoke produced by a shisha contains a high level of toxins, including carbon monoxide, heavy metals and other carcinogens.

p/s: Shisha should be banned by government years ago.