Wednesday 11 May 2016

Governments should regulate water pipes

The smoke water pipe may be a tobacco smoking device with roots in India, Africa, and the geographic area. Water pipes have been used for hundreds of years, but the introduction of ma‘assel in the early Nineties, a molasses-soaked smoking tobacco, triggered a surge in use outside the traditional sheesha user base of older males. Water pipes employ Associate in Nursing indirect heat supply (such as lit charcoal) to slowly burn tobacco leaves whereas users draw smoke down through a water chamber and into their mouths through hoses. Along with the sweet sirup, ma‘assel is flavored heavily with apple, banana, orange, vanilla, and other fruit or candy tastes.

Water pipe smokers often incorrectly believe that their style of tobacco use is safer than smoking cigarettes, a notion which should be dispelled by thorough, aggressive educational efforts. When hot smoke passes through water at the base of the sheesha, the smoke cools, and is then easily and deeply inhaled  by even first-time tobacco smokers. The heavily flavored and cooled water pipe smoke is inhaled  in large quantities. The water’s cooling effect could truly be increasing damage by enabling  sheesha smokers to inhale smoke deeper into their lungs.

Water pipe smoking is related to elevated risks of lung, lip, mouth, and esophageal cancers. As widespread water pipe use may be a recent phenomenon, large-scale high-quality studies on the long-term health effects of water pipe square measure still forthcoming. However, health scientists confidently predict that water pipe smoking can cause large-scale illness and death just like alternative styles of tobacco.

Water pipe use has spread on the far side the center East and is changing into integrated into the worldwide tobacco market. In 2012, Japan Tobacco International purchased Al Nakhla, then the world’s largest water pipe tobacco manufacturer. Other international tobacco corporations have explored moving into the sheesha tobacco market. Otherwise-strong smoking bans in Europe and North America sometimes have specific exemptions permitting the smoking of water pipes in cafés, enabling public smoking in otherwise smokeless areas. Water pipe use is additionally on the increase among adolescents and young adults on college campuses and on the far side, even among people UN agency expressly refuse to smoke cigarettes. Researchers must quantify the harms to health of this technique of tobacco use and verify the best strategies to stem the increase of sheesha use round the globe.
Sources

Aslam HM, Saleem S, German S, Qureshi WA. Harmful effects of shisha: literature review. Int Arch Med. 2014;7:16.

CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health. Hookahs: Smoking and Tobacco Use Fact Sheets. Centers for Disease management and Prevention; 2013.

Maziak W, Nakkash R, Bahelah R, Husseini A, Fanous N, Eissenberg T. Tobacco in the Arab world: old and new epidemics amidst policy dysfunction. Health Policy Plan. 2013 Aug 19;czt055.

Maziak W, Ward KD, Eissenberg T. Interventions for waterpipe smoking cessation. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007;(4):CD005549.

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