/ 11 hours ago
Shisha has become a new-found love for many smokers, particularly young adults, despite several warnings about the dangers associated with it. ENIOLA OYEMOLADE and FAVOUR BOLUWADE report conversations with shisha smokers, business owners, medical practitioners among others discussing the reasons for this addiction, dangers associated with it and legal bindings.
Alvin walked into one of the most popular nightclubs in the urban part of Ibadan recently, followed closely by his brothers and friends who wanted to have a nice time; an escape from the boredom of daily routine. Narrating what it felt like to be in the club was a new feel for Tolu and Halimat who were the females among them. While they settled to get their drinks, appetizers and take pictures for social media, a bar attendant walked up to them asking if they wanted shisha; he had used the other expression: “you go smoke pot?”
Shy and not wanting to try anything new, Tolu declined but got fascinated when the males in the clique asked for a pot and started to gulp the smoky content almost immediately. Asking how it felt or tasted like, Halimat responded it was nice and had a pineapple taste. She was smoking shisha for the first time. Soon, she said “I no want again” (I do not want again), but the males continued passing the pot among themselves till the smoke didn’t really come up anymore.
Shisha is a way of smoking tobacco mixed with flavours. Wood, coal or charcoal is then burned in the shisha pipe to heat the tobacco and create the smoke. It is smoked through a bowl with a hose or tube joined on. Thistube has a mouthpiece that the smoker uses to breath in the smoke.
Otherwise referred to as hookah, hubble, bubble or narghile, shisha is now gradually becoming a replacement for cigars and cigarettes in the society, especially among youths because, according to some of them who talked about smoking shisha, “it is easier for me”, was the average response. Other reasons adduced for this trend include experimentation, smoking for pleasure, perceived safety compared with cigarette, among others. Shisha smoking is common in restaurants, parties, club houses and other social gatherings.
Girls, shisha, the shisha cruise
The ease in taking it could be the reason research has it that ladies order shisha and smoke it more than men. This was confirmed by a shisha businessman and club manager who requested anonymity. He said most girls prefer shisha and often times, when at the club house, men who come with their ladies to the bar request the pot on their behalf.
According to him, “Girls take shisha more. The popular age range is between ages 17 and 29 for both males and females and most girls come on their own to ask for it, same as in the club settings. In most of our outlets, we have discovered that whenever men come with girls and they ask for shisha, it’s the girls who want the shisha cruise. Shisha is easier to smoke for girls because it is just really smoking from the pen; designed to be fun or simple to use; the flavours are made to be tasty and as a substitute for smoking tobacco. It is cheaper than smoking cigarettes.”
Shisha has become an alternative because it has little or no unpleasant smell; it is simple to use and the pens are easy to carry, hence, a discreet thing to have. The vapour from smoking it does not contain tar and have no lingering smell on the body as it is when taking a cigarette.
‘I stopped smoking shisha when I heard of the health implications’
According to a former shisha smoker who spoke on the condition of anonymity, he used to see shisha as just a form of smoking flavoured fumes. “It used to be a means of catching fun just for people to know you’re part of the ‘happening ones’. I took it to show that I could pop smoke too. It did not make me feel strange in any way; it was just like prestige; there was nothing more to it. I didn’t even think it was that bad.
“However, I got scared of shisha when I heard about the health implications. Since then, I have stopped it and focused on weed. Weed on its own doesn’t have any serious implication unless its consumption is too much.”
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, a club manager who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that “ a pot is sold from the range of N8, 000 to N30, 000. In the club it can also be sold per pot till the flavour is finished. It is N 5, 000 per pot till the flavour in it finishes and well, depending on the size and how fanciful it is. The business is good and there is much profit. And really, Shisha is just flavour with refined coal to make it burn. There are different types of flavours depending on what you want such as pineapple, mint and others. And it’s said that a puff of shisha smoke is a pack of cigarette.”
Another shisha seller who also spoke on the condition of anonymity mentioned other flavours of shisha which included apple, banana and watermelon. According to her, “my customers are actually a mixture of both genders, sometimes there are more males than females, but both genders take shisha.
“As for it being legal, as at 2015 that I checked, it was illegal, people could not smoke it in the open, but now, I don’t know if it is still illegal because people smoke shisha a lot even in the open.”
She noted that there are some people who prefer shisha to weed because they believe it is only flavour they are smoking. I have some customers who don’t smoke weed or cigarette but they take shisha. I sell shisha because it’s business for me. People use it a lot at parties so it is a source of income when you sell to people or when it is for rent. A friend once told me that it was the income from shisha her mother used in paying them through school so I also sell it because of money, to make a living.”
‘Shisha contains same carbon monoxide which generators give out’
Speaking on the trend and medical implication, Dr Chinonso Egemba, popularly known as Aproko Doctor on Twitter, stated that shisha contains the same carbon monoxide that a generator gives out, but this time, just covered with different flavours.
“Shisha gives out 10 times more carbon monoxide in a single session than one cigarette. A single session of shisha will deliver 25 times more tar, 125 times more smoke, 2.5 times more nicotine and 10 times the carbon monoxide. The average cigarette contains about 600mls of smoke, while an hour-long session of shisha contains about 90,000mls of smoke.
“It really doesn’t matter if you pick up a cigarette or take up shisha smoking, the risks are similar, from heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, ageing prematurely, other forms of cancer, lung disease, gum disease, etc. The risks are the same. These risks might also affect people who are around shisha smoke. They are called second-hand smokers.”
It should be banned—Dr Ogunleye
Another doctor, Omolara Ogunleye, noted that it is bad enough that our so called “normal air” is pure considering the refuse, smoke and so on; adding shisha to it is bad and in the same category as cigarettes.
“It shouldn’t be taken in my opinion. The long-term consumption of shisha will affect respiratory tract and the gastro-intestinal tract which is the mouth and the throat. Primary complications of respiratory physiology will include chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), bronchitis, and cancer. This cancer can be that of the mouth, throat and other various cancers of the lungs. It can also have effects on the cardio-vascular system, basically the heart, which can result in heart failure or heart attack.”
Ogunleye stated that shisha should be banned because it doesn’t just hurt the active smokers, but also the passive smokers.
“I just saw a study where the average percentage of lung cancer is attributed to passive inhalers. These are people who never even touched a cigarette in their whole life, all they did was just to relate with active smokers.
“For a community study in 9 hospitals, the range of this lung cancer attributed to passive inhalers is between 9% and 21.4% and about 15.5% on an average, while for hospital-based studies, it is between 16.6% to 28.3% and that is an average percent of 22.7% for 22 hospital-based studies. This is actually a very huge percentage.
“Shisha and cigarettes are almost the same thing. Tobacco products are cigarettes and cigars; when you put it in a pipe or hookah, they become shisha. Although the argument is that it is flavoured water, but shisha is actually smoked tobacco and it will have the same effect when you take it on a long-term basis or even a short-term basis sometimes for people with morbid conditions.So, there is no difference between taking shisha and cigarette.”
Abdulmalik Akano, a barrister in Osun State while speaking on the legality of the consumption of shisha stated that “It is not illegal if the content is tobacco and any of the unbanned substances, but when it is crack and weed that’s in a shisha pot, then it becomes illegal. We have a tobacco control act.
“The NTC (National Tobacco Control) Act empowers the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) to prescribe industrial standards for tobacco products. Although the current SON Industrial Standards for cigarette bans cigarettes with characterising flavours including menthol, SON does not at present have an Industrial Standard for shisha. Shisha importation, sale and use is, therefore, ‘free for all’. This is perhaps one of the reasons for the reported increase in the prevalence of shisha use in the country.
“The advertisement of shisha cafes is a violation of the NTC Act, which bans advertisement, promotion and sponsorship of any tobacco product. This violation further calls for the need to implement and enforce the NTC Act urgently. Shisha cafe should operate in secrecy without any form of advertisement at all. The two above statement present a paradox.
“NTC bans the advertisement of tobacco related products but SON hasnot presented an informed guideline that specifically regulates the use of shisha pots; means the law remains toothless at best.
“A further exemplification of the toothless of the law can be found in the 2018 blanket shisha ban by Ministry of health with the promise of SON guidelines that will direct the implementation of the ban. Till now, nothing has been done. In 2018, the Consumer Protection Council (CPC) which is a creation of the Federal consumer protection act has been changed with the responsibility to arrest those who violate the ban. But recall that the ban is a blanket ban. There are no specific guidelines. So, how then will CPC conduct arrests?”
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