Hooked on Hookah - College Freshmen Initiating Tobacco Habits

Hookah, also known as waterpipe smoking, is an up and coming unusual form of tobacco use that has struck popularity in the past five years in young adults and college students. Smoke in hookah goes through water before being inhaled with a coal on top to burn a certain type of tobacco called “hookah” and is often seen with a circle of people around one, being for use of multiple people. Waterpipe smoking has seen a spur of popularity in my demographic of male and female college freshmen. College freshmen wish to explore new things and want to become social to make new friends being away from home. This contemporary trend has been the result of the cultural takeover of “Hookah Culture”, partially because of the misconception of its ill health effects, being so new. The nature of smoking hookah is a social hangout, however it an unhealthy tobacco product to initiate use of.

        This hookah culture is brand new to our community, not being apparent nearly as much only five years ago, however it has caught on well socially. In an interview with an expert on the field of Hookah, Soloris Waili, a user of hookah for ten years and worker at the “Royal She-Sha Hookah Lounge” in Radford for nearly a year, more was found out about hookah in the community (hookah culture). Waili said that “the culture is starting to spread, more people aged 18-24 years old have been exploring hookah in the past 3-4 years” (Soloris Waili, Personal Communication, April 25th, 2013). The Royal She-Sha Lounge has been around since 2010, and Soloris says that the Lounge’s popularity and hookah overall’s popularity is continuing to increase because people are “noticing it more” with people smoking on it quads and being in shop windows (Soloris Waili, Personal Communication, April 25th, 2013). Stemming from the rising popularity is the growing number of hookah bars in the United Sates with Centers for Disease Control estimating there is 300 hookah cáfes (bars) in in 2006 and an article of Public Health Challenges for the 21st Century estimated up to possible 1,000 hookah lounges in 2012 (Centers for Disease Control, 2012, para. 3) (TobaccofreeU organization, 2012, pg.3). This through the roof spike in popularity is result of the overall setting of hookah use, with it being a reason and means to socialize with other people. My definition of Hookah Culture is that Hookah social medium of people in quest to know each other better, smoking it wherever they wish to go and being with the people they want to be with in a relaxing, extroversion way.

        Like teen clubs and even bars that serve alcohol, the purpose of a “hookah bar” or lounge is to be a place for people to socially come together. Interviewing a four year hookah user, Freshman, at Radford University about the social nature of hookah, he said that “Hookah is a social event, and that you never hookah alone” (Matt Barnhill, Personal Communication, April 23rd, 2013). Whether it be on college quads, beneath a tree on a sunny day, or inside a home or hookah lounge, Waili said that it is an occasion “for everyone to get together, especially in a 18+ (with that being the legal age to smoke) college town” (Soloris Waili, Personal Communication, April 25th, 2013). For college students that have schoolwork, the need to meet financial obligations, and dealing with the stresses of life, smoking hookah is a relaxing way to be with peers socially. Explained in the quote “it acts as a calming agent, letting you chill out with people” (Soloris Waili, Personal Communication, April 25th, 2013). There aren’t many alternatives than making a hookah circle when people don’t have a fond hobby or something else they would rather do to unwind with other people. Having a relaxing time or even “the pregame before anything”, anyone can do it, and from hookah’s readily available social nature, new people try it (Matt Barnhill, Personal Communication, April 23rd, 2013).

Finishing high school and going to a completely new place, college, it is possible that a persons close group of friends, or all of their friends did not go with them to the same school. This is also at a time when young adults try many new things and test their limits, enjoying their freedom from their parents. Desiring to make new friends, and willing to try new things, perhaps in the way to help students become more social. Wanting to meet people and getting to know them, hookah use increases. In a longitudinal study of the use of tobacco every month at Syracuse University, “the highest rates of hookah initiation occurred in the first two months of students’ first semester of college” showing a new students’ willingness to explore (Fielder, 2012, para. 1). The average percent of “current hookah user habit” initiation in the first two months in a study by Fielder was 3.1%, nearly three times the average of new initiated hookah use in any month of the year (1.14%) (Fielder, 2012, para. 12). In Radford, while the Royal She-Sha Lounge may get on average, according to Waili,  “5 or 6 people newly trying hookah in the bar per week” during the first weeks of school in the fall semester the bar is “jammed pack” with “a lot of new freshmen faces” (Soloris Waili, Personal Communication, April 25th, 2013). With immediate entry to college, curiosity to go out on a quad or to a bar to smoke hookah is at peak and hookah because it acts as a social catalyst for new students that are forced or trying to make new friends.

Coming to college, rates of smoking hookah increase dramatically for freshman, explained in the quote “the transition to college is an important developmental period when risky behaviors, such as alcohol and drug use, tend to increase” (Fielder, 2012, para. 4). This being said, highly educated, college going students know the affects of tobacco products, however there exists a big misconception that smoking hookah is not an unhealthy habit. With waterpipe-based use of tobacco being newly popular in the United States, rumors account for most of what is believed among the safety of hookah. Although evident information is online of its health effects, there lacks a surgeon general’s warning like which is on packs of cigarettes, on hookah products. Instead of there being a Food and Drug Administration Surgeon General’s administered warning on the front of hookah tins, there is perceived healthy images of fruit and misleading “contents: 0.5% nicotine” labels, inviting the opposite of a warning, convincing to people it is healthy (Lycklama, 2006, para. 14). The lack of the “SURGEON GENERAL’S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease, And May Complicate Pregnancy” lets the false rumors of hookah pipes thought of safety run free without greater knowing (Tobacco Control Legal Consortium, 2007, para. 2).