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Apparently Minnesota is once again a leader: when it comes to smokin' the hookah. An article published in August in The Rake (also covered a month later in The Minnesota Daily) shed light on this revival that seems to be growing in popularity despite the smoking ban. Now the Strib is up on it too, covering our local hookah scene. Of course, the hookah (which is kind of fun to say) is not without its critics -- for instance, from the MN Lung Association. Is the hookah for the taste of it? For the fun of it? Do we have any hookah smokers (or critics) out there that can comment on this?
Sarah's hookah story still puffing away months after the fact.
As I told Mr. Lonetree from the Strib, I had a foot in both camps: a former hookah owner (college days) and now spokesperson for the American Lung Association of Minnesota. Heed now the words of an older and wiser former hookah smoker.
The cool, flavored smoke from the hookah isn't as harsh on the throat as other forms of burning tobacco. There's the rub, as Ole Bill wrote...Many hookah users can decieve themselves into thinking the waterpipe is a "safe" or "safer" form smoking.
Sorry, folks, it doesn't work that way. Students at the U quit smoking in record numbers when the ban began in March -- it would be a shame to see some new and exotic form of smoking lure them back.
If you have a hankering for a Middle Eastern treat, leave the hookahs on the shelf and try a falafel pita instead. I recommend Abu Nader's grocery & deli on Como....
Not refute Bob's good point above, a hookah does have it's own appeal, seperate of other forms of tabacco consumption: sharp tastes, heady but light buzzes, etc. I say, check it out, but having quit cigarettes 8 months ago, I can't recommend that anybody go out and buy one. And falafel sucks, lets be honest, get a gyro with some cucumber spread.
I think's Bob's post is going to be hard to follow up. So I'm just going to have fun saying "hookah".
If you have a hankering for a Middle Eastern treat, leave the hookahs on the shelf and try a falafel pita instead.
I am not a smoker. Indeed, my father (a life-long smoker) died of lung cancer. But good lord, statements like that make me want to start smoking unfiltered cigarettes by the carton, just to not be on the same side of such lame wholesomeness.
This is heavy-hitting news from the Strib. Where else could I find a USA Today-style cross-section illustration of a hookah?!
I am a "regular" hookah smoker. Regular being maybe once a month. While all smoking is dangerous, I'm not too scared.
For reference: I refer to "hookah smoking" as shisha. Calling it "hookah smoking" makes you sound uninformed :)
I admit, I am a white suburbanite. I began smoking shisha with my arab friend at arab cafes.
I find the "trend" of college students doing shisha a little annoying. There is a definite cultural aspect to shisha, and there's nothing like smoking a shisha with some good middle eastern music in the background and middle eastern food on the table. I think removing the culture from shisha makes it just another stupid college trend. I try to invite my friends to try shisha with me as it's a really good way to relax and have good conversation.
However, shisha at restaurants like Nochee is just.... silly?
Maybe I'm just bitter that something I enjoyed as a novel activity has become popularized and soon we'll have shisha at McDonalds.
Also, the implication of the use of marijuana with shisha just shows that a once respectable activity is now going to take a bad name with the public. Shisha has nothing to do with marijuana.
If you want to try Shisha, Visit Gyro Land on University Ave. in Fridley, in a strip mall across University from Sam's Club. Apple is always a good "first flavor" :)
Also, as to answering WHY one would smoke shisha:
#1: Shisha tastes good. I know all the tobacco companies like to say their cigarettes have good taste, but we all know that's BS. Shisha actually does taste good. It has cool smoke that is easy to inhale.
#2: Shisha relaxes you. A nicotine buzz is not really a buzz at all, at least not with the shisha. The effects of the nicotine mix with the fact that you're getting less oxygen than normal to give you a sort of light headed, floaty feel.
#3: Shisha creates conversation. The floaty state that shisha puts you in is condusive to creating good conversation. Since you are sitting at a table around a hookah, smoking and passing, you have a good opportunity to discuss many things.
#4: Shisha is a fun activity. On a friday or saturday night when you're not in the mood to drunkenly party, shisha is a good way to spend a few hours chilling with your friends while not spending a whole lot of money.
#5: At least for Muslims, shisha is "being bad". Just like the appeal of drinking to high schoolers, shisha is not forbidden by islam, but frowned upon. Therefore it is a sort of mini rebellion when you smoke the shisha. This aspect really doesn't appeal to me since I am not Muslim, but I could see how it could.
I think I'm going to start up a non-profit anti shisha hookah campaign. I need donations to stop this scourge on society. These poor filks don't know what their doing. I need education funding. OOOOOOO the sky is falling I need money to do good!!!!!
Sometimes a poor anti-smoking activist just can't win.
Mike S. accuses me of "lame wholesomeness." Pro-smoke Pioneer Press columnist Craig Westover thinks I have a "drinking problem" because I sometimes actually patronize Stasiu's and other smokefree NE Mpls bars he shed alligator tears for in his column.
Hey, Cary: listen to yourself, will you?
"While all smoking is dangerous, I'm not too scared....Calling it "hookah smoking" makes you sound uninformed"
WE sound uninformed?!?
I agree with Perry. Sounds like Bull-Shisha to me...
just gimme my bong and a waterbed...
a hookah?.... i saw one walking down the street in the warehouse district
Hey Bobby boy, I understand the risks of smoking. I also don't do it every day. But, everyone's got a vice. I'm sure you do unhealthy things in your life, knowingly or not.
Cut a man some slack and hop off that pedestal of yours.
For starters, any registration system that won't let me use Norwegianity (length) is kinda fucked.
As for shisha, a friend just gave me a hookah from India as a gift. It is in fact nicer than my bong, even if neither will ever have to process any tobacco.
But shisha makes sense. Before I quit smoking tobacco, I was rolling my own and the quality was at least 100x greater than anything store bought. Half of what makes cigarettes unhealthy are the junky additives.
Shisha or rolling your own is the only way to smoke tobacco.
Mr. Speaker, I paid for this microphone!...er, pedestal!
No prob, Cary. We at ALAMN love the smoker but hate the smoke. That's why headlines like the Strib's "hooked on hookahs" gets us fired up.
Consider your slack cut, man.
Uhm... Not so much a leader with the hookah smoking. The trend came and went in Southern California about four years ago.
I hate to get into an East Coast / West Coast thing, but I think places like Philly and Detroit had hookah scenes first.
But whatever.... here's a Washington Post story too.
i have benn smoking hookah for almost 6 months .. maby 2 a week and i know that any form of smoking tabaco is bad for u but you have to know that people do not smoke hookah for their health they smok it when they are with there friends and all it is is a relaxing thing to do after u ate some great arbic food and just chat with friends!! but th thing i am worred about is young people getting in to hookah bars.. like me i am 15 years old and they dont even look at me funny let alone ask for i.d. i see 6th graders in them some times.. i just think they nees to do a better job of letting people somke in bars like this!
i know smoking is bad in any way shape or form but i went from smoking a pack of cigs a day to smoking one bowl of my hooka once in a week if that, in my opinion its a lot less now than before. we all have our own vices if we are not hurting anyone why is it wrong.we are not forcing people to smoke or blowing it in peoples face if you dont like it walk away or did we forget that this a free country.
Well I am from SoCal, San Diego to be exact, my folks still live here and I am here on holiday. The trendiness of the hookah may be gone from SoCal be some of us patronize those establishments even more because of that fact, I was hoping to find a decent place to chill here and catch a whiff of sex-on-the-beach or even just a lackluster attempt at very-vanilla, but sadly as in most cases my home state tends to dissapoint. I mean seriously, anyone who has ever even attempted the simple pleasure of smoking from a hookah could never imagine it becoming habitual, so to place it in the same realm as marlboros or any other form of tobacco is idealistically ignorant. Why can't people here just let things roll, doing some "shish" might relax some of ya. So post back after you've given it a try, and get back to me with some places to light up here in the tundra, dats it, peace, Im outies...
Ahh.. I started smoking Shisha with my friends in London, England. I've never smoked a cig before because of how it makes you stink. Shisha never has left any smell that you would have to worry about. I dont think about the effect. But when Im sitting in a restaurant with everyone smoking around me is that any safer? Hey if I die from Cancer from smoking this.. HEY I went out HAPPY! Doing what I wanted. People can say all they want about how bad smoking is.. but it just depends on the person. My grandma is 85 yrs old been smokin since she was 20 and she is still kicking hard and still smoking. I dont care about all this Nonsense. BUT shisha is a good thing to do when you are just hanging out having a few drinks! :-)
I went to Yafa Grill last weekend in Columbia heights. The real apple shisha was really good but the service was not great. My coals were completely burned out for 15 minutes. For me, hookah is about the taste and the socializing.
hookah is a clean pipe. come buff away with us in seattle. yella habibi bye
I own a hookah and I do it for the intense amount of smoke, the social scene of it (great conversation piece), and it can give an extreme buzz.
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