Hookah bars home to dangerous air pollution: Study 0
Air quality tests at seven hookah bars found dangerously high levels of airborne particulate matter, carbon monoxide and nicotine. (Fotolia)
Air quality tests at seven hookah bars found dangerously high levels of airborne particulate matter, carbon monoxide and nicotine.
Hookah bars — where people smoke a syrupy tobacco mix called shisha from a traditional Middle Eastern water pipe called a hookah — have gained popularity in North America in recent years.
The study from Global Tobacco Control at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health performed air-quality analysis at seven Baltimore hookah bars.
"There is a mistaken notion that tobacco smoking in a water pipe is safer than cigarettes," said Patrick Breysse, an environmental sciences professor and the study's senior author.
"Our results suggest that this is not the case. Our study found that water pipe smoking creates higher levels of indoor air pollution than cigarette smoking, placing patrons and employees at increased health risk from second-hand smoke exposure."
In Canada, where indoor tobacco use is restricted, hookah establishments mostly serve tobacco-free herbal shisha. However, the charcoal used to heat the shisha still releases carbon monoxide, metals, and other chemicals into the air.
Alberta banned hookah bars in December 2013.