Canadian e-cigarette company, founded by a leading heart surgeon, Dr. Gopal Bhatnagar, releases open source 3D printable electronic hookah converter, to raise awareness, and provide solution for harms of traditional hookah that over 100 million people use everyday. Hookah is also known as Shisha, Nargile and Water Pipe, among others, and is sadly a growing trend.e cigarette
|Download, modify and print for personal use or gifting for FREE under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0) USPTO patent pending (Application 14/228,470); CIPO patent pending (Application 2,847,702)|
- The Adapter is being released for free download under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC 4.0
- 3D artists and object designers are encouraged to customize it, and share it back
Disruptive to hookah industry – 100 million smokers worldwide everyday with an estimated billion users per year
Current e-hookah converters retail for as high as $200; this adapter uses cheapest disposables readily available at conveince stores in most countries as “fuel”; They provide a better business case than smoking hookah
In line with upcoming anti-hookah regulations
Payback in lieu of all the help from customers and smokers in starting us up and helping us fine tune flavours and devices
- Juxtaposes science and business for the betterment of humankind
- Reduces the harm for the user by up to 99% by allowing use of disposable e-hookah or nicotine-free e-cigarettes
- Only meant for use by current hookah smokers; not to be used by the non-hookah smokers
Why should we care?
Because, approx. 100 million people smoke hookah each day, and surprisingly, the numbers are growing overall.
About Hookah & its history
Hookah (also known as, Shisha, Narghile, Water Pipe, or Hubble Bubble) originated in the Middle East and India in the 16th century. Traditional Hookah burns charcoal to heat tobacco or herbs, producing smoke. The pipe then bubbles the smoke through water to cool it, giving many the false feeling of it getting “cleaned”, but in reality it barely does anything to the harmful gases, metals and toxic chemicals. Majority of people use Hookah for its social aspect. It is commonly believed that because hookah smokers share a pipe, “it’s a great way to spend time with friends”. Many others just enjoy the taste or do it out of habit. Tobacco smoking, which may have begun as early as 5000-3000 BC, kills an estimated 6 million smokers every year, and it is the single most preventable cause of death.
Is Hookah Smoking bad? How bad?
Hookah smoking can be detrimental to the users’ health and has been linked to several negative health effects including an increased risk for cancer, decreased pulmonary function, decreased fertility and increased likelihood of spreading infectious diseases. These harmful effects are almost the same for tobacco and herbal hookah. Most users have a misconception that water purifies the smoke, whereas the truth is, water in the base is to humidify and cool the smoke to create a “smoother” sensation, and not to filter toxic contents.
Quite bad for health
A hookah smoker absorbs 10-35 times more toxic and cancer causing substances than a cigarette smoker even after being filtered through water. The “Water filtered” smoke includes very high levels of: tar (at least 35 times more than cigarettes), carbon monoxide (at least 15 times), arsenic, lead, nickel, and many other cancer-causing chemicals.
The volume of smoke inhaled in a 45-min to 1-hour long hookah session is estimated to be the equivalent of smoking between 100 to 200 cigarettes. The number of puffs per 45-min to 1-hour hookah session is estimated to be equivalent of smoking between 10-15 cigarettes. (Source – World Health Organisation)
Hookah smokers may be at high risk for: oral cancer, lung cancer, stomach cancer, cancer of the esophagus, reduced lung function and decreased fertility, to name a few.
The water pipe may be a breeding ground for harmful bacteria and sharing a hookah pipe might expose you to infections such as herpes and tuberculosis.
The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains that hookah users may absorb higher concentrations of toxins than cigarette users — because they puff more often, inhale more deeply and smoke for longer periods of time in each session. A typical 1-hour hookah session involves 200 puffs, while an average cigarette is 20 puffs.
Costs individuals and society a lot of money
Tobacco and smoke use costs society: direct and indirect health-care costs, lost income due to premature death, disability, worker absenteeism, reduced productivity, fire damage and tobacco subsidies.
Burning shisha coal is one of the major causes of fires in various parts of the world.
The World Bank estimates that tobacco use costs the global economy $200 billion (US) each year — $70 billion in the developing world.
Tobacco-free herbal hookah is almost as bad as tobacco hookah
“Herbal” tobacco-free hookah uses a mixture of flavours and herbs, but has almost the same health risks as a tobacco hookah.
Air quality — where only herbal hookah was allowed, had much higher levels of cancer-causing particulate matter and carbon monoxide than those found in smoking rooms of bars (Ferrence , Tobacco Control in September)
Experts at the London-based Department of Health and the Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre have found that one session of smoking shisha resulted in carbon monoxide levels spiking to at least four times more than the amount produced by one cigarette.
http://www.health.umd.edu/sites/default/files/Hookah%20Brochure-%20Final_0.pdf http://www.harmreductionjournal.com/content/5/1/19 http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/tobacco_industry/hookahs/index.htm#compare