Source: www.detnews.com
Author: Kim Kozlowski

Everybody that Rola Rayes knows smokes the ornate water pipe that has become popular in Metro Detroit and around the world.
But no one realizes the dangers linked to the pipe, known here as a hookah, because it is so ingrained in her Middle Eastern culture.
Rayes, 17, has been trying to convince her family and friends about the personal health risks of water pipe smoke, and second-hand smoke to others.

“It’s a very big problem,” said Rayes, a Dearborn resident who moved here in 2005 from Lebanon.

“This is affecting me, it is affecting my brothers and it is affecting them.”

Rayes joined state and local health leaders Thursday to strategize ways to tackle a growing state problem of hookah smoking. They are trying to stop the use of hookah pipes as research about the risks continues to mount.

For example, smoking the hookah for an hour can yield as much smoke as 100 or more cigarettes. It contains significantly more nicotine and carbon monoxide than cigarette smoke, and use by pregnant woman can contribute to low birth weights, according to recent studies.

“It’s spread and is being used widely among different age groups and across ethnicities,” said Dinah Ayna, coordinator of the forum, organized by the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services.

No research into hookah use existed before 2002, according to Wasim Maziak, director of the Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies in the Middle East. But his center alone has been involved in 50 scientific reports about argileh, the fruity, fragrant tobacco used in hookah pipes.

Although it is unclear whether smoking cigarettes or a hookah pipe is more dangerous, studies have shown that hookah smoking increases the risk of lung cancer, decreases lung function and increases blood pressure and heart rate. It also is linked to dental diseases and oral cancer.

In the U.S., water pipe usage has been reported in all states and about 300 hookah cafes have opened, mostly near college campuses.

Closer to home, a 2008 study of water pipe use by Wayne State University students showed 15.1 percent had tried it, 12.4 percent used it in the past year and 4.7 percent acknowledged regular use. It’s so easy to get hookah pipes locally that some businesses deliver rentals to people’s homes, like pizza.

“It’s becoming a global epidemic,” said Maziak, who is also an assistant health professor at the University of Memphis.

Tobacco use of any type is the leading cause of preventable deaths nationally and locally, said Janet Olszewski, Michigan Department of Community Health director. That’s why the state health officials continue to lobby for a smoking ban in Michigan and launched a study about hookah usage so it can devise ways to attack it.

“This is a particularly serious problem,” Olszewski said.

But many people do not believe it, including Mike Krizmanich, co-owner of the Lava Hookah Lounge, a popular spot for young people in Shelby Township. He believes the recent hookah research is partly motivated by the decline of cigarette sales in communities where argileh smoking has become popular. He also said the hookah tobacco is pure and contains no additives or nicotine.

“It’s a gimmick,” Krizmanich said of the health warnings. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”

But research doesn’t lie, said Adnan Hammad, senior director of ACCESS. That’s why local communities must start now to curtail the use of a Middle Eastern tradition.

“We don’t want the community to be afflicted with cancer and cardiovascular disease 20 years from now,” said Hammad.
“We want people to live a long time.”