Discovering The Similarities

[PaperTreeProphet]

The more and more i learn about PVs the more i find similarities between this and another alternate smoking hobby of mine. Hookah smoking. I don't know if anyone else has made the connection, but so many of the attitudes and ideas, as well as some of the base physics are quite similar.

Granted, while smoking hookah is still smoking tobacco, almost all of us in that community feel it is much healthier then cigarettes, and even a few have the clean bills of health to prove it.

The part that made me really notice the connection, was one of the possible main ingredients in e-juice, Glycerin. For those who don't know the science behind hookahs, at least in there modern use, you are technically vaporizing the juices in the tobacco, along with the juices added (usually glycerin, honey or molasses, and flavorings) to produce the smoke. Without glycerin, no huge puffy white clouds in hookah smoking. Ask people in certain parts of the world who have to get there hookah tobacco without glycerin.

Why the post? I just found the connection interesting. I kinda put stuff like that together. Even if i kick analogs, I won't give up hookah. While some might say it is just as bad as smoking a pack a day, from what I've learned and seen through my years in the community, it doesn't worry me one bit.

Maybe the two communities could join together, both are facing new laws and litigation from the big tobacco industries. That is another thing that makes them the same. But look at me, im rambling.

 

[No Brag]

For me, the point is to get away from tobacco and all of the crap that goes with it. I just want a medium to transfer the nicotine and something to keep my hands busy. That is an interesting comparison though. How does a hookah work? I've heard of them, but never been around one. Could you just use it with e-juice and no tobacco like an e-cig?

 

[jtpjc]

Well, I have three hookahs (actually four, if you count the one that's parked at my mothers' place) and some experience with them, so I can tell something about them I guess. There are similarities between PV's and hookahs, in that water pipe tobacco is available in many different tastes, like apple, strawberry, cappuccino, you name it. This isn't tobacco as you know it, for one it's wet. So wet in fact that I wear those surgical gloves (if that's a word) to handle it, it's outright messy. So burning the stuff is out of the question. In fact, you kind of cook/bake/scorch the stuff, and inhale the released vapors. And here we have a big difference: the heat source is a burning coal, placed on top of the tobacco, seperated by a perforated piece of aluminium foil. Therefore the heat is not in direct contact with the tobacco, hence no burning. But you DO inhale the vapes of the coal as well, and for obvious reasons that's not very healthy.
An other similarity with e-cigs is that hookahs can be perceived as very bad for you. After all, it's smoke! And so the witch hunt has produced some outright lies. One hour of hookah use (your general session length) generates just as much toxics and carcinogens as smoking 100 cigarettes! Well, I thought, that should be noticeable in my blood pressure. So I measured my blood pressure just before a hookah session and immediately afterwards. No difference. No wonder, the water pipe tobacco head can't possibly hold the tobacco content of 100 cigarettes, and besides, there is very little real tobacco in the water pipe "tobacco," sometimes even none.

In no way do I consider myself a hookah guru. Maybe you should take my story with a big grain of salt. I even may be outright mistaken. There are tons of other people that have a lot wiser words to say about this subject, and I certainly don't say that the use of the hookah is in any way "healthier" or "way better" than the use of cigarettes (or PV's, for that matter). Just my 2 cents, and not even that.

 

[PaperTreeProphet]

I am somewhat of an expert on hookahs. I have been in the community for a long time now, and have spent most of my time doing what i normally do, trying to figure out, from a scientific standpoint, how it works.

With a hookah, you have 4 main components to the hookah itself; the base which holds the water, the stem, the bowl, and the hose. Everything else is added extra, those are the parts you just about have to have to make one work. When you pull on the hose, you create a negative pressure inside the base. Nature hates vacuums, and looks to get rid of it. The path of least resistance, is the stem. It causes air to be pulled over the hot coals on top of the bowl (which are not in direct contact with the tobacco) which then heats the tobacco up vaporising the juices in the tobacco, as well as the added juices creating the smoke which travels down the stem. The water in the base does not filter as many believe, but it does cool the smoke, and condense more of the glycerin vapor into smoke.

Thats the short version actually. As for the health aspect of it, its still a big topic. Some scientists like to think they have taken care of the subject, but there testing methods are massively flawed not taking into account how hookah is actually smoked. Taken from a letter a hookah smoker smarter then myself wrote:

2. Tar (the leading cause of lung cancer) is produced in the body when BURNING and smoking a tobacco product at temperatures of 800 degrees F or more. Hookah tobacco and it\'s juices are baked by the coals and separated by a piece of aluminum foil at temperatures of 300 (when the coals are not being heated by sucking on the hose) to 345 (when the hose is being sucked on) degrees.

But as i said, its still a hot topic.