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 Written By:
Hajo Flettner of Madrid, NM
Hookah Connoisseur
10/31/2007
Smoking Sensibly
It should be clear to anyone that enjoys any form of tobacco that ever more invasive and oppressive efforts have been enacted by governments across the Western world to discourage smoking in any form. Equally clear is that the very powerful anti-tobacco lobby uses junk science to promote a political agenda with active support of essentially every mass media outlet. Those of you interested in investigating these issues are encouraged to consult the following:
http://www.lcolby.com/ , http://www.journaloftheoretics.com/Editorials/Editorial%201-4.html ,
http://www.junkscience.com/news/berlau.htm http://www.junkscience.com/news/euwsjets.htm
http://www.junkscience.com/news/whosmo.htm and http://www.forces.org/evidence/index.htm
Nonetheless, we should all be aware that tobacco does entail health risks and, like anything else that one can enjoy such as alcoholic beverages, it can be misused or abused. Clearly, some people simply should not smoke, especially people not of legal age, women who are pregnant or breast feeding, people who are sick or suffer from asthma or some sort of cardio-vascular trouble. For those people the delights of the narghile1 are not for you to enjoy. When looking around narghile web forums it is clear to me that a great many people are having negative side affects from irresponsible use. Reports of sore throats, dizziness, headaches, nausea and even passing out are surprisingly common and all of these problems are easily solved by sensibly enjoying your favorite tobamel, mu'essel, tumbāk or jurāk.2,3,4
Sometimes new smokers forget that coals produce CO (carbon monoxide) so excessively quick or deep inhalation will make you feel dizzy or nauseous and in some cases even cause you to pass out. Inhale shallowly or not at all and smoke slowly while eating fruit, drinking lots of fluids (other then alcohol) and taking frequent pauses from smoking will let you get the most out of your session. Never use charcoal made for any purpose other then for use with your narghile. Doing otherwise can be fatal. Always wait until your coal begins to ash all over before smoking for a better tasting and safer session.
The most important thing to remember is that smoking is a pleasant diversion from the stresses of life and not an activity that should consume most of your waking hours. When I hear of people smoking a narghile for four or more hours continuously and then complain about sore throats, dizziness, headaches, nausea and the like it is clear that such people are over indulging and are suffering the consequences. If you start to suffer the various maladies I have mentioned then you need to change your smoking habits. Remember that narghile use is an aesthetic and social pursuit meant to enhance your life and if that is not the case then you need to change the way you smoke.
Narghile use should not be about who can smoke the longest, make the biggest clouds of smoke or consume the most mu'essel in a period of time. Such an attitude prevents one from getting the most out of what this hobby has to offer and leads to problems that will diminish the pleasures offered by narghile use.
1. Narghile A single or multi-stemmed (often glass-based) water pipe device for smoking; originating in some part of the Middle East that has gained popularity, especially in the Arab World. A hookah (commonly misspelled as: hooka or huka) operates by water-filtration and indirect heat. It can be used for smoking many substances, such as herbal fruits and tobacco. Depending on locality, hookahs may be referred to by many other names (often of Arab, Indian, Turkish, Uzbek, or Persian origin). Arghile or Narghile is the name most commonly used in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Albania, Greece, Israel, Bulgaria and Romania, though the initial "n" is often dropped in Arabic.
2. Muessel - (as there are many ways of transliterating Arabic, the transliterated spelling of the word may vary), Arabic for, literally, honeyed, and is the name the "shisha tobacco" is labeled as by the arabic producers.
3. Tumbāk - is word of Turkish origin and refers simply to tobacco, not necessarily flavored or sweetened. The Persian word tumbeki and the Hindi/Urdu word Tumbako are similar.
4. Jurāk - mainly of Indian origin, might be considered as an intermediate substance between traditional sweetened tobaccos and the fruity hookah of modern times. The term applies both to a tobacco mixture that includes fruits or aromatic oils as well as tobacco that is just sweetened.
Definitions courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hookah
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