Cameroon has joined other African countries like Kenya, the Gambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Ghana to ban the smoking of Shisha pipes siting major health risks.
Shisha also known as Hookah, narghile, waterpipe, or hubble bubble is an instrument used for smoking tobacco (usually flavoured) and it has a glass base usually containing water. The device was invented by Abul-Fath Gilani, a Persian physician of Akbar, in the Indian city of Fatehpur Sikri during Mughal India.
Shisha has increasingly become popular all over the world with people smoking it at nightclubs, events and private gatherings. The general misconception is that Shisha smoking is less harmful compared to smoking cigarettes and other substances but the medical effects show otherwise.
Health Effects Of Smoking Shisha
In a typical 1-hour hookah smoking session, users may inhale 100–200 times the amount of smoke they would inhale from a single cigarette. In a single waterpipe session, users are exposed to up to 9 times the carbon monoxide and 1.7 times the nicotine of a single cigarette.
The amount of smoke inhaled during a typical hookah session is about 90,000 millilitres (ml), compared with 500–600 ml inhaled when smoking a cigarette.
People tend to relax and smoke Shisha pipes more because they think that the shisha flavour is not the same stuff found in cigarettes and that the water would have purified the smoke. Yet smoking shisha is just as bad if not worse than smoking cigarettes. The charcoal used to heat the tobacco can raise health risks by producing high levels of carbon monoxide, metals, and cancer-causing chemicals.
Even though the smoke inhaled passes through water, it still contains a lot of harmful toxins. Shisha smokers are also at risk of having clogged arteries and developing heart disease that can lead to a heart attack. Shisha smokers are at risk of also having nicotine addiction which is consistent with tobacco smokers.
Internationally the European Union, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Ethiopia, France, Germany, Moldova, and Turkey have had to regulate how tobacco products are imported and used. Dubai Municipality banned smoking shisha in parks, beaches and all public recreational areas in Dubai. It also prohibited the entry of pregnant women into shisha cafes; regardless of their intention to smoke.
Shisha smoking is also popular in Zimbabwe, especially among the younger adults that go clubbing and attend big events as they are marketed at these places more. There are also shisha bars and specialized shops that sell the devices, electric cigarettes, shisha flavours and charcoal. Many people may not know the health risks associated with smoking shisha and some may generally think it’s not bad based on the misconceptions they hear from their peers.
There currently are no laws governing shisha smoking in Zimbabwe and it would be expected because the trend was recently adopted. Yet given the step that has been taken by other African countries, it may be a move that could be taken soon in Zimbabwe as well. The regulations and bans coming up everywhere are a sign that people are realizing that the device is not as harmless as it has been assumed.