Hookah Smoking Spreading Like Wild Fire Across America or Beware of Turks Bearing Gifts

Since the United States has existed our soldiers through their training or experiences abroad have brought back to America more than they left with.   Through the introduction of new habits and attitudes they have changed the face of this Nation and consequently it's habits.  We owe the new popularity of Hookah smoking, in part, to the war in Iraq and conflicts in other Western Asian countries.  

Smoking a Hookah in Iraq

Probably the best article and most comprehensive statistic on the subject of Hookah smoking is by the American Lung Assoication and can be found here.  However, having said that please realize that the American Lung Association has become fanatical about second hand smoking and has also lost sight of our constitutional right to do any damn thing we want to our bodies.  If they had things their way they would outlaw smoking.  No.  But wait.  If they outlaw smoking who will pay taxes on cigarettes to support socialized medicine in America?  But I digress.  At any rate treat the ALA facts and figures with a healthy amount of skepticism 


By anyone's calculation Hookah smoking has taken off like a  Nebraska wild fire spreading across the great plains of American culture by people predominantly under 30.  This transformation from cigarette smoking to Hookah smoking has occurred primarily since the Iraq war.

Soldiers in Iraq lighting up.  As far as I can determine this photo originally came from Narghile Blogspot.   My apologies to the original photographer as I haven' been able to determine who that is.

Probably the best and most entertaining web blog I've found for the aficionados of Hookah smoking can be found at the The Hookah Lounge.  Another popular site is Hookah Kings. The most politically bizzare Hookah site I've found is, Narghile Blogspot.  This website attacks the anti Hookah organizations and is a strong support of Gaddift and claims the US is responsible for over one million deaths in Lybia.    Hookah Hookah is a very big site with a clickable Google type map with locations of Hookah Bars all across the USA.  Probably very useful to Hookah Smokers country wide.


Earlier examples of soldiers in America being introduced to various drug habits and bringing these habits home can be found in this excellent article Higher and Higher by Peter Brush .  The article by Brush is a straight forward narrative accounting of what happened.  It is riviting.   I'm assuming the author borrowed the title from the Jackie Wilson classic, Your Love Keeps Taking Me "Higher and Higher" which was adopted as an almost cult song by the soldiers in Vietnam as was  Purple Haze by Jimmy Hendrix. 

Sharing a pipe with friends.  This is a common scene across America Today

In my youth is would have been assumed there was not tobacco in the device.

Liberty Mutual Insurance Company's "Responsibility Project" Blog Here has an interesting article called 

The Hidden Harms of Hookahs.

I give you the NOT SO HIDDEN HARMS.  
Lack of O2 to brain.  This is what causes your "buzzed" feeling.  Wait until you have a stroke...it's a very similar feeling except you start slurring your words and pissing in your pants and begin to drown on your own saliva because you can't swallow.  If your lucky you die, if not your life is changed forever.  Smoking a Hookah is a fun thing to do I'm sure.   But do you want to take the risk that a tiny blood vessel brain might not be up to the stress your putting your body under?  As they say in Thailand, "Up to you!"