In the middle of the night, you open your eyes and have a terrible pain in your chest and back. Then you start coughing horribly, you hear a noise from inside your body. You can’t stop coughing and panic takes over, terrifying you. You shout for help, but no one can hear you, so you call an ambulance. The ambulance doesn’t arrive in time, your lungs collapse and you’re no longer alive. That is one of the worst-case scenarios that can happen due to the frequent use of tobacco and its negative impacts towards the human body.

Hookah is a type of tobacco, invented in India, that has become very popular in our society, especially around the age groups of 13 to 25 years old. The Tobacco is also known as Shisha, Nargileh, Hubbly Bubbly, or Water Pipe in various countries. It is a single of a multi-stemmed instrument for vaporizing and smoking flavored tobacco, whose vapor or smoke is passed through a water basin. Teenagers and young adults frequently order to look ‘cool’ in the eyes of their so-called friends. Some research in 2010, made by Dr. Anis, who states that in 2010, the Monitoring the Future survey found that among high school seniors in the United States, about 1 in 5 boys (17%) and 1 in 6 girls (15%) had used a hookah in the past year. Also, these young users don’t know the risks and what the damages that happen to your body.

Others want to replace cigarettes, by thinking that hookah causes less damage or doesn't cause damage at all. According to Dubaybo, a pulmonologist, that is not true. Dubaybo states that the risk of developing systemic diseases or damages from the hookah is even more extensive than cigarette smoking. He is clearly saying that hookah is more dangerous than cigarettes.  The reason why, according to Taylor Hays, is: “Hookah smokers may actually inhale more tobacco smoke than cigarette smokers do because of the large volume of smoke they inhale in one smoking session, which can last as long as 60 minutes. An hour-long hookah smoking session involves 200 puffs while smoking an average cigarette involves 20 puffs. (Hays T.)” Hays is stating that hookah is more dangerous for the respiration system than cigarettes due to the energy you need to inhale for the cigarettes, is shorter than the one you need for hookah. Despite the differences, the smoke that you exhale from both is more dangerous to you and to people around you.

Perceiving it in a medical point of view, the charcoal used to heat tobacco increases health risks by producing high levels of carbon monoxide, metals and cancer-causing chemicals because even after the smoke has passed through water, it still has high levels of these toxic agents. These agents cause lung, bladder, and oral cancers and cause clogged arteries, heart disease and weight loss to the newborn babies of women who smoke during pregnancy.
 

For some people, hookah is a daily. They say that it relaxes them and clears their thoughts after a long day like Jawad Rezavi that says: ”After a long day, I'll go to a shisha lounge. It relaxes me. In the same way that some people will enjoy a glass of red wine or need a cigarette to keep going while they're working, I like to enjoy my shisha. If I don't do it, it feels like I'm missing something (Rezavi J.)."  And even though there is an age limit for the use of this product, hookah lounges don’t actually focus on this and they let it go, which results in the number of underaged users to increase.

In my opinion, even though hookah is something very popular in our society, people should look after their health first and then think about other people's opinion on them. Also, I think there should be more strict rules on the use of hookah and people in hookah lounges should be more cautious about the age of the clients they have and think about the client's health before the money. Furthermore, users should be more careful and cautious about what they are doing and after knowing all the risks and damages hookah causes, I would suggest quitting hookah.