WKU News

WKUHS Health Educator, Jataun Isenhower, discusses dangers and myths of hookah use in response to trends in local community.

Hookah trend hits BG: Two smoking lounges in city catering to mostly college-age clientele

LIZ SWITZER, The Daily News, lswitzer@bgdailynews.com
Published: December 5, 2010Hookah.

Huh?

The latest trend in college culture has America's youth headed to hookah lounges from Brooklyn to Berkeley and university towns in between, such as Bowling Green.

Hooking up to the hookah - water pipes that originated in Middle Eastern culture more than 500 years ago - kids huff on flavored tobacco in exotic blends with names such as winter flower, memories, orange cream and cappuccino. They listen to music, munch on bar food such as chicken wings or cheese fries, and drink tea and coffee.

Bowling Green now has two lounges: The Prince Hookah Lounge on Old Morgantown Road, which opened in August, and the Saharan Lounge on the U.S. 31-W By-Pass, which opened last fall. The college clientele, mixed with some older patrons, begin to trickle in about 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. Many come in groups and stay until closing time at 1 a.m.

Social smoking (American Indians also made a practice of it) might not be a new pastime, but the exotic allure of hookah has American college kids hooked.

At Prince Hookah - where 45 flavors of tobacco are sold - social smoking is a great way to meet people, said Western Kentucky University freshman Jonathan Malone.

"The first time I smoked I immediately bought my own hookah because I loved it so much," Malone said. "It's just like a chill thing to do. It's fun, it tastes good and everyone has a good time doing it."

Also known as narghile, shisha and goza, a hookah has a smoke chamber, a bowl, a pipe and a hose. Specially made tobacco is heated and the cooled smoke passes through water and is then drawn through a rubber hose to a mouthpiece.

There is a particular culture around hookah that has developed among young people in the United States in the last two or three years, according to James Huntsberry, owner of the Saharan Lounge.

After reading an article in the Harvard Business Review that named Bowling Green as one of the best places in the country for start-up small businesses, Huntsberry moved here from Seattle and opened the Saharan.

"There is an allure about it," he said. "I think some kids see an element of deviance. And I think some feel they are a little better than others because they smoke hookah, maybe they are more cool."

Malone agrees. He loves hookah so much he got a part-time job at Prince Hookah.

"It's an awesome job," he said. "I sit back there and smoke hookah and help people. It's just a real chill thing to do and you meet a lot of people. It's a community thing. If you smoke a hookah people are going to want to join you and you just talk and smoke hookah. It's a social thing."

WKU pop culturist Tony Harkins, an associate professor of history and director of the university's pop cultural studies program, said the collective experience is part of the appeal.

"It's new and different, too, so that seems exciting," he said. "Also, cigarette smoking is increasingly seen as a selfish or self-destructive thing to do, so this is a more socially acceptable way of getting tobacco. It has not been demonized the way cigarettes have been."

"Hookah is OK. Cigarettes, no," said Alaa Hantouli, who moved to Bowling Green three months ago from Lexington to manage the Prince Hookah, which also has a location close to the University of Kentucky campus. Originally from Israel, Hantouli considered it an honor at the age of 16 to be invited by his father to a hookah lounge.

"It is like the coffeehouse culture in the Middle East," he said. "College kids can't go to clubs and drink because they are under 21, so they like having a place to hang out together and relax. You meet new people, sit, talk or listen to music."

It is also a profitable business, Hantouli said. The hookah establishments sell bowls of tobacco for about $8 to $13 that can be shared by up to six people and last about 45 minutes. They also sell the tobacco and hookah pipes, which can cost upwards of $150 to $200.

Hantouli said he believes the new U.S. hookah culture owes much to the fact that many Middle Eastern immigrants have come to America in the last few years, including many Iraqis who have been resettled through the Bowling Green International Center. They too, come to the Prince, he added.

Part of the appeal also is that hookah is considered by some to be less dangerous than cigarettes, said Jataun Isenhower, a health educator at WKU Health Services. But that is a myth, added Isenhower, who recently distributed a flier to campus residence halls warning students about the health risks.

"I've been told that the water used in the hookah makes the tobacco less toxic," she said. "That is not true."

Hookah smoke contains carbon monoxide, tar, nicotine and heavy metals such as arsenic - just as many toxins as cigarettes, possibly more, according to Isenhower. She added that the Mayo Clinic warns that hookah smoke contains eight times more carbon monoxide and 36 times more tar than a cigarette.

In addition, pipes used in hookah bars and cafes might not be cleaned properly, risking the spread of infectious diseases, she added.

"No, it's not good for you and you get a lot of smoke but you don't feel it," Hantouli said. "The hookah you smoke once a day maybe, or once a week, and not every day like cigarettes."

Whatever risks are involved, hookah has enough glamour associated with it to capture the attention of kids all over the country, some under age. That is posing a new challenge to the anti-tobacco movement in the U.S.

The smoking rate in the U.S. has been cut almost in half in the past 40 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 1965, about 42 percent of U.S. adults smoked; by 2003, that was down to about 22 percent, the CDC claims.

Huntsberry sees a lot of minors at the Saharan.

"That's why we ID religiously," he said. "We catch them all the time. I can almost look at a kid and tell he or she is under age because of the sheepish look on their faces."

Whatever the reasons hookah has caught on with kids, it is here and it has mass appeal.

"We live in a culture of enormous choice," Harkins said. "But I would caution about seeing this as a fad or wrong-headed. People do things for a reason. This is obviously filling a niche that is not being filled elsewhere."

Copyright 2010 News Publishing LLC (Bowling Green, KY)