Hookah Hoax

Reviews

Highly Recommended. Is smoking a hookah as addictive and harmful as smoking a cigarette?

This is an excellent film and one which should be shown in every middle and high school across the country! Short, direct and full of information this video can be utilized in making the decision to smoke or not smoke a hookah. One would think that with all the available information regarding the harmful effects of smoking we wouldn’t need a film such as this but people still smoke cigarettes and now smoke hookahs which are just as harmful.

Creative advertisement labels hookah use as safe. Don’t be fooled by the enticing flavors and the social atmosphere of a hookah lounge. As this video clearly explains hookah smoke contains just as many harmful chemicals in higher concentrations than cigarettes. They are harmful and cause just as many complications and chronic illnesses as cigarette use does. The moral of this story is stop smoking!  

—Sandy Costanza D’Youville College, Buffalo, NY 
Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO)

Public health consultant Francisco Ramirez narrates this very visual and statistics-rich program. In the United States, hookah smoking has become popular among high school students and even more so among college students. While many users think that hookah smoking is safer and less addictive than cigarettes, the statistics and charts here say otherwise. For instance, hookah smokers tend to inhale 10 times the amount of smoke per puff and smoke up to 100 puffs or more per session in comparison to cigarette smokers. The water, while cooling the smoke, doesn't filter out much in the way of toxic chemicals. Smokers who share the same pipe can transmit communicable diseases, and the amount of secondhand smoke is many times higher than that from cigarettes. Hookah smokers can also become addicted as easily as cigarette smokers, and the long-term health effects are similar. Even more of a concern is the amount of carbon monoxide created by the burning charcoal needed to keep the moist tobacco mix burning. This is true even when the user is smoking an herbal nontobacco mixture. VERDICT Overall, this is a well-done and thought-provoking program. It would be a good addition to health awareness/education programs.

—John R. Clark, formerly at the Hartland Public Library, ME
School Library Journal