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Hookah home delivery: an emerging public health issue

While Hookah, a.k.a waterpipe, tobacco smoking is rooted in the middle eastern cultures, it is rising in popularity among young people worldwide. The high popularity of hookah is attributed mainly to the introduction of tobacco flavoring, a growing cafe culture, the spread of social media and the absence of strong hookah-specific regulatory or policy frameworks.

Already believed to be underregulated by many, Hookah smoking is raising new concerns with the popularity of home delivery services – bringing the trend future out of regularity view.

“A recent review of legislation in 62 countries demonstrated that the majority do not address hookah regulation, relying instead on generic tobacco/smoking definitions to cover all tobacco products,” said Mohammad Ebrahimi Kalan, Ph.D. candidate in the department of Epidemiology at the Robert Stempel College of Public Health & Social Work, who recently published a new paper in the Tobacco Control .

A growing trend in Middle East, USA, Europe and Australia, hookah can now be directly delivered to customers’ door steps by simply placing an order through phone applications or social media sites.

“Experienced hookah smokers prefer to smoke at home because they can prepare their own hookah according to their preference,” Kalan continued. “Youth may also choose to smoke at home to avoid age restrictions.”

One hookah smoking session exposes users to larger smoke volumes and higher levels of tobacco toxicants such as tar, carbon monoxide and nicotine compared with one cigarette.

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