One Last Puff (PDF; 117 KB)
Source: British Medical Journal
From press release (NewsWise):

Campaigners are trying to get hookah smoking exempted from England’s smoking ban for cultural reasons. Despite there being little research into the health effects, doctors writing in this week’s BMJ say the ban should stay in place.

A hookah is a glass based waterpipe used for smoking. It is commonly used in Arabic communities for smoking herbal fruits after meals, but it is becoming increasingly popular among young adults in Western Europe for smoking tobacco, massel (aromatic tobacco), cannabis and bango (an intoxicating plant leaf), write Dr Rashid Gatrad and colleagues.

It is thought that around 100 million people use a hookah daily worldwide.

Reports suggest that family attitudes towards children smoking tobacco in waterpipes are far more permissive than attitudes to cigarette smoking.

There has been little research into the health effects of waterpipe smoking, but data show that rising numbers of children in the UK are being exposed to and experimenting with smoking hookah products, write the authors. Children as young as 10 years old are known to smoke fruit flavoured aromatic tobacco in areas with large minority ethnic communities such as Leicester and London.

See also: Managing smoking cessation (PDF; 127 KB)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 7:15 pm and is filed under Government and politics, Health and healthcare, Social and cultural issues, Tobacco and smoking, United Kingdom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.