KARACHI: WHO registers concern over shisha popularity
KARACHI, May 31: The World Health Organisation has regretted inability of the developing countries to take the message “Tobacco is indeed deadly in any form or disguise” to the general public in a meaningful way.
WHO Eastern Mediterranean Regional Director Dr Hussein A. Gezairy, in a message on the eve of World No-Tobacco Day with specific reference to the Mediterranean Region said it had still not managed to change the social acceptance of tobacco, and its use was spreading day by day.
Though the political commitment had risen, much more was yet to be done, he said mentioning that tobacco consumption is emerging in varied garbs ranging from shisha (water pipe) to diversified pretexts in context of chewed tobacco and snuffed tobacco. Instead of people smoking cigarettes only, shisha use was now widespread among all age groups, he elaborated.
Dr Gezairy also referred to a recently conducted study among the age group of 15 to 35 years showing that 46.6 per cent of the sample surveyed started smoking shisha before the age of 18 years and that 83 per cent of shisha smokers were present in homes where family members smoked.
Moreover, the study revealed that 29.3 per cent of students spent more than 50 per cent of their allowance on smoking shisha; one-third of those surveyed believed that smoking shisha had no harmful effects on health while 50.6 per cent believed that shisha was less harmful than cigarettes.
Even more astonishing is the fact that 71.5 per cent of the sample surveyed felt that a shisha smoker was more susceptible to trying drugs than a non-shisha smoker.
These are very alarming signs which will cause a shift in diseases caused by tobacco use to younger people, especially heart-related diseases, if not tackled in the right way.
“For decades, shisha was thought to have been less harmful and less addictive than cigarettes. However, we now know that this is not true; the truth is that shisha is as harmful and as addictive as cigarettes,” he said.
The regional director negating the misconceptions said that the facts had shown that using a water pipe to smoke tobacco could pose a serious potential health hazard to smokers and others exposed to the smoke emitted.
While using a water pipe to smoke tobacco is not a safe alternative to cigarette smoking and that a typical one-hour long water pipe smoking session involves inhaling 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled with a single cigarette.
Even after passing through water, the smoke produced by a water pipe contained high levels of toxic compounds, including carbon monoxide, heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals, Dr Gezairy elaborated. –APP
