Bright icicle lights, loud Middle Eastern music and people enjoying Mediterranean food along with smells of different flavored fruity tobaccos. Shisha Cafe is a hookah bar where people can hang out with friends and smoke fruit-flavored tobacco using a water pipe. Smoking hookah is the same as smoking tobacco: You must be 18.
Rashid Hijazi, manager of the cafe, said smoking shisha is healthier than smoking cigarettes. Smoking cigarettes damages cells inside people's bodies resulting in lung cancer; smoking cigarettes can cause a person to become an addict and it can leave a bad odor on clothes, Hijazi said. Smoking shisha consists of a small amount of tobacco with fruit-flavored molasses.
Hookah smoking contains a small amount of nicotine in the tobacco, which makes it safer to smoke, Hijazi said. The shisha consolidates smoke through water which acts as a cooling filter. There is no tar in the tobacco, and the water in the base filters out the small amount of nicotine.
Smoking shisha will not cause a person to become addicted, Hijazi said. "It can't kill someone," Hijazi said. Business senior Gabe Murguia attends the University of Texas at San Antonio and is a regular customer at the cafe.
Murguia does not smoke cigarettes but does smoke shisha. "It is not addicting, and I come here to relax and hang out," Murguia said. There are no studies that show the risks of hookah smoking are less, the same or greater than cigarettes.
So is smoking shisha safe? "All forms of smoking is not good for you," said Dr. Victor F.
German, chief of the division of community pediatrics of pulmonary diseases and professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center. People who use cigars or a water pipe have a risk of contacting oral cancer, which can also be called mouth or tongue cancer, German said. "This cancer can be on the gums and cheeks," he said.
Smoking cigarettes can cause lung cancer and problems with the heart. When the lungs can no longer function, other organs in the body shut down, German said. People enjoy smoking because the nicotine attracts a specific part in the brain that makes a person feel good.
"Nicotine is the main ingredient and makes people get a thrill," he said. Smoking shisha may contain a small amount of nicotine in the tobacco, but there's still a risk.
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