Category: Hookahs and Health

J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

Zachary Kleinhandler, a senior at Columbia College, does not smoke cigarettes. In fact, he thinks cigarette smoking is kind of a dirty habit.

Richard Perry/The New York Times

At the Casbah Rouge, a Moroccan restaurant a few blocks from Columbia University, from left, Jenna Crouch, Erica Carley and Marjorie Yang, all students at Barnard College, enjoying a jasmine-flavored bowl.

But every few nights, he and his friends share a hookah at the Casbah Rouge, a Moroccan restaurant a few blocks south of the campus, drawing in mellow-as-molasses flavored tobacco that bubbles through the water pipes and gives the air a fruity sweet scent.

“I came opening day last year, and I’ve been coming ever since,” said Mr. Kleinhandler, an American studies major. “I’m not addicted or anything. I always come with other people, and we smoke one hookah in an hour. It’s just a nice way to relax and be sociable.”

Hookah bars have been cropping up in Middle Eastern immigrant enclaves, like Little Egypt in Astoria, Queens, and have made inroads in chic downtown areas of many American cities. Now, college students are discovering their appeal.

A few decades ago, hookahs were seen as exotic delivery systems for marijuana and hashish, but these days students view them as almost virtuous (even if health officials disagree) because most students indulge only once or twice a week, always sharing and so inhaling less than they would with a full-fledged cigarette habit.

And if there is a whiff of illegality, it may come from running afoul of smoking bans in New York and many other cities. Tobacco is, after all, legal for college students who are at least 18.

Many middle-age former hippies ‚Äî and campus security officers ‚Äî wonder whether college students really see hookahs as a good smoke, or a smokescreen behind which to hide drug use. But today’s fresh-faced college students, even those who confess freely, if off the record, that they smoke marijuana, say they use hookahs for tobacco, not drugs.

And they say smoking in hookah cafes, at $5 to $25 a pipeful, is cheaper than bar-hopping and allows them to partake even midweek, with no drunkenness, no loss of inhibition, no hangover and no legal worries.

“You can come here even if you have a test the next morning,” said Elizabeth Yale, a Barnard College junior who was sharing a hookah with Mr. Kleinhandler’s group one night. “And you don’t get home feeling dirty, smelling of smoke and alcohol.”

Nationwide, 200 to 300 hookah bars have opened since 2000, according to Smokeshop Magazine, many near college campuses.

In Westwood, Calif., students from the University of California at Los Angeles retreat to the Gypsy Cafe. In Raleigh, North Carolina State students wander over to the Marrakesh Cafe, which replaced a local Starbucks. In Austin, Pipes Plus is just a stone’s throw from the University of Texas.

Near the University of Wisconsin’s Madison campus, hookah smokers were disappointed last summer when a smoking ban stopped the Casbah Bar and Lounge from offering hookahs indoors. Sales plummeted from about 300 hookahs a month to about 30, for outdoor customers.

“We’ve been experimenting with a nontobacco product, for $12, a mixture of hibiscus, eucalyptus and molasses,” said Sabi Atteyih, the owner. “Hookah cafes are an important cultural experience, a place where Muslims and Jews and Catholics and people of color can sit side by side, and share.”

But despite perceptions, hookah smoking is not healthy.

“Hookahs are not safe,” said Cathy Backinger, acting chief of the National Cancer Institute’s Tobacco Control Research Branch. “There are toxic compounds, including carbon monoxide. Hookahs also contain the tobacco-specific nitrosamines that are cancer-causing. Even though it’s coming through the water and feeling smoother, some studies show the levels of toxic compounds are at least as high, if not higher, than cigarettes.

“Another thing that’s different from cigarettes is the sharing. Where there’s sharing of a mouthpiece, there’s a risk of infection, and there are some documented cases of herpes.”

“Hookahs are still a relatively new phenomenon in this country, and a lot of young people think that because it feels smooth, there aren’t any adverse consequences,” she added. “But they’re wrong.”

Hookahs, also known as water pipes, narghile or hubble-bubble, use charcoal to heat shisha, tobacco that has been soaked in molasses or honey and mixed with fruit pulp and flavorings. Most hookah cafes offer dozens of flavors: apple, mint, peach, raspberry, mango, strawberry, jasmine, coconut, rose and more.

In many cities, the customers in hookah cafes are mainly Middle Eastern. And even in bars appealing to students, the feel is often more Middle Eastern than psychedelic.

Cafes are not the only place where college students use water pipes. At Yale, one of the fraternities, Alpha Epsilon Pi, has a hookah room that is for quiet socializing and relaxation — and the calmest area during parties.

“We decided our top floor should be a place where you could get away from the loud music, meet new people, hang out and talk,” said Ian Bishop, a fraternity brother.

“We could pull out Taboo or Twister, but there’s something nice about sitting around a hookah, blowing smoke rings,” he added.

Jewish student organizations at many universities have sponsored “Hookah in the Sukkah” events during the annual Sukkot harvest festival. But since many college dorms prohibit both smoking and drug paraphernalia, on-campus hookahs can be a touchy business. Last month, the University of Oklahoma newspaper ran an article describing the tensions between campus hookah smokers and campus security.

Even off-campus, many hookah cafes run afoul of a new generation of smoking bans that have created skirmishes for hookah bars in many cities.

In New York City, the Smoke-Free Air Act that took effect in 2003 prohibited smoking in restaurants, and the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene says hookah bars are not exempt from the law. The Health Department has cited some hookah cafes for smoking violations but has yet to close one.

Michel Feriani, the manager of the Casbah Rouge, is fully aware of the smoking ban but cannot bring himself to stop offering hookahs.

“The hookah is 3,500 years old, it’s part of culture, it’s part of religion, and everyone loves it,” he said. “I’m not going to give up.”

LOS ANGELES — Scott Nelson leans back in his chair as he blows smoke rings in the air. The smell of apple and peach tobacco inside the Gypsy Cafe, a hookah bar located just steps away from the University of California at Los Angeles campus, is so thick you can almost taste it as it escapes from the tall water pipes on top of nearly every table.

For hundreds of years, Middle Eastern men have flocked to water pipes — also known as hookahs or nargiles — to smoke fruit-flavored tobacco, talk and watch the world pass by. Now hookah bars are appearing in U.S. cities, including Jacksonville, Fla.; Evanston, Ill.; and Madison, Wis.

In college towns or big cities such as Chicago, San Diego and Washington, these hookah bars aren’t looking to attract older Middle Eastern clientele content to smoke and play chess through the night. Cafe owners want their walls bursting with trend-seeking college students and twentysomethings eager to try the newest thing and tell their friends about it.

“It’s just relaxing,” said Nelson, 19, who drives more than a half-hour every Friday night to hang out at the Gypsy hookah bar.

“We’re addicted to the hookah,” said Catherine Rieder, 18, as she puffed away. “With a cigarette, you can take it with you, but with the hookah, you can only do it once in a while. It’s special.”

Nestled between a movie theater and a cookie store, the Gypsy Cafe, with the feel of an unhurried European coffee shop, attempts to seduce its clients with the taste of another world. Lush purple draperies envelop the richly textured walls, as hookahs — with elegant necks and glass bodies that seem to dance in the light — sit with their hoses wrapped around their necks like exotic snakes, waiting for someone to pluck them from the counter.

Hookah enthusiasts say tobacco smoked from the water pipe contains a small proportion of the nicotine and none of the tar and chemicals found in American cigarettes. Some people even make their way into the dimly lighted lounges to stop smoking cigarettes. But health officials aren’t ready to give the hookah their seal of approval as a healthful way to smoke.

Several studies have indicated that hookah smoke contains significant amounts of nicotine and high amounts of arsenic and other heavy metals, said Tom Houston, director of science and community health advocacy for the American Medical Association. Incidences of lip and tongue cancer among hookah users are reasonably high, and the effect on the heart of using hookahs is the same as that of cigarette smoking, he said.

“They’re only deluding themselves if they think it is a safe way to smoke,” Houston said. Because smoking hookahs is touted as nonaddictive, Houston said he worries about young people who develop a taste for nicotine through smoking a hookah, and “when they can’t find a hookah bar they borrow a cigarette, and there they go.”

The flavored mixture, shisha, is tobacco combined with fruit and molasses or honey. Flavors include mint, jasmine and mango. Double apple — a mixture of red and green apples — remains a bestseller.

To use the hookah, tobacco is placed on a metal plate with a hole in the bottom that connects to a water-filled metal container below and is heated by specialcharcoal . When the smoker inhales, smoke travels through the water, down the tube and into the smoker’s mouth. The result, enthusiasts say, is a delicious assault on the senses that has none of the harshness of cigarette or cigar smoking.

And the experience is easy on the pocketbook. A bowl of tobacco averages $10 and lasts about 45 minutes between two people, leaving plenty of time for conversation and dessert. Many hookah lounges stay open until the wee hours of the morning.

At the Gypsy lounge and its neighbor, the Habibi Cafe, the demand for hookahs is so great that customers often wait more than an hour for a table. The Gypsy experienced a slight dip in business during the early days of the war in Iraq but quickly recovered.

More than 13,000 customers have made their way through the doors of Cafe Hookah in Madison, Wis., since it opened six months ago, owner Vartan Seferian said. With business booming, he plans to open four more Midwest locations in the next few months, all in college towns.

“Having a hookah bar is like going to a mountain with a little hammer and shovel, and finding gold and thinking, how am I going to get all this gold down?” Seferian said. “It has been crazy. Just crazy.”

Seferian is not the only one profiting from the biggest smoking trend since the cigar craze of the mid-1990s. Hookah-related sales grew 500 percent each year over the past three years, even though the earnings of thetobacco industry as a whole has declined slightly.

The Casbah in Jacksonville, Fla., draws a wide range of customers, from men in tuxedoes on their way home from the symphony to college kids looking to try something new, said the owner, Jason Bajalai.

“I guess it’s the fad of the moment,” said Bajalai, the son of Palestinian immigrants.

Cafe owners and enthusiasts attribute the sudden surge in popularity of hookahs to factors including a weak economy and an increased interest in the Middle East.

“We used to see a hookah in the backpack of every tourist, so we decided to bring them here,” Hookah Brothers co-owner Ahmed Roushdy said. The socializing that accompanies a hookah is a big draw, he said. “You might find someone at a bar drinking alone, but you would never find someone sitting alone smoking a hookah.”

© 2003 The Washington Post Company