Growing Problem Of SHISHA Among The Youth's

By: Yusuf Hassan Wada,Principal Editor UDUTH

There is an increase in the smoking of shisha among young people posing a great danger to the next generation. Shisha (Hookah) is the new chill out fad spread like bush fire in the harmattan and has swallowed many youth in various towns.

I have been on a tour of an advocacy visit to secondary schools spreading the message of "Drug Use Menace" in our society. To my surprise, students often ask the same
question: "What's the health implication of smoking Shisha?" A couple of thoughts always come to mind: words and action create images and expectations.

This is why we must be careful: what happens around children would and condition their thinking and actions. They see these things in public imaginations as nothing short of normal and fashionable.

This surely is one of the reasons I decided to share my thoughts. The rate at which children embrace Shisha is alarming. So, for this assignment, I visited a few so-called Shisha lounge/bar/café and shops selling Shisha and its constituents. These lounges are strategically located at places frequented by youths.

Shisha is a glass-bottomed-jar water-pipe (Hookah) in which fruit-flavoured tobacco and molasses/sugar covered with foil and roasted with charcoal is placed making it tastes silky and smells sweet with a pleasurable, unhurried treat.

The tobacco smoke passes through a
water chamber and is inhaled deeply and slowly via a hose pipe attachment thereby puffing dense clouds of smoke from their noses and mouths.

But it is worthy to note that young people are being deceived by those who claim that Shisha is a safer alternative to tobacco.

Smoking shisha harms almost every organ of the body and causes ill health. Carcinogens (aerosol, tar and heavy metal particles) and nicotine present in cigarettes which make them dangerous for human health are still present in shisha and, therefore, shisha is equally or more harmful.

Nicotine is the main addictive ingredient of tobacco. When somebody smokes a shisha or cigarette, nicotine is rapidly absorbed by the lungs and delivered to the brain.

According to a research done by World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that cigarette smokers generally inhale 8 to 12 puffs over 5 to 7 minutes, whereas a shisha session lasts 20 to 80 minutes and involves 50 to 200 puffs. Therefore, the volume of smoke inhaled in an hour-long shisha session by any smoker is estimated to be
the equivalent of smoking between 100 and 200 sticks of cigarettes. The end product of both cigarette and Shisha is the same, a smoke, containing carcinogens including
those responsible for the cardiovascular disease (carbon monoxide), lung disease (volatile aldehydes), cancer (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), and addiction
(nicotine).

Thus Shisha is implicated as an important causative factor for both the development as well as death due to numerous non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as
cardiovascular disease, tuberculosis, cancer, chronic lung disease and diabetes.

Resulting in higher incidence of
morbidity and mortality due to smoking-related noncommunicable diseases. The smoking materials are rarely cleaned. A single hookah is enough for a group of
10 to smoke tobacco to their satisfaction thereby sharing also the mouthpiece which helps a lot in the spread infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, herpes, and influenza among its users. Do we then need a seer to
soothsay that it will gradually lead to their pre-mature death? All of this is only a tip of the iceberg regarding the growing problem of Shisha.

With mounting despair, almost every young girl or boy trapped into this act are driven by various passions and youthful negligence towards believing that it doesn't harm.

Many also indulge in this unwholesome act as a result of curiosity to know how it differs from smoking a cigarette and peer influence.

Also, it increase is the way it's
portrayed in the media. Yet the reality of shisha is far from the rosy picture seen in music and movies. It has been projected in the eyes of the public imaginations as
something being fashionable, trendy and cool. Perhaps, the most disturbing fact about this trend now is that people mix it with other ingredients such as mixture
of neuro-stimulant drugs among them is Hemp (weed) inside the (shisha) pot masking the scent with a flavour such as Apple, Mint, Cappuccino, Peach etc which is said to produce more effect called "Strong Head" or "Dirty Head" than smoking the raw leaves wrapped in paper, therefore one becomes an addict of numerous drugs.

However, some flavours are said to make you feel euphoric and buzzed such as Double Apple flavour, Gum with Mint flavour etc affecting senses, emotions, thoughts and consciousness.

A lot hinges on this debate have made smoking of shisha being outlawed in so many African countries near us such
as Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. The government should also make an initiative for the nation to adopt ban even on selling shisha to minors and hefty penalty for offenders.

There should also be a nation-wide educative campaigns and re-orientation (together with parents in particular, and
the society in general) poised at sensitizing and educating the citizens; especially the youth.

They will be re-oriented and disabuse their minds of some myths surrounding the
dreadful effects of shisha. Just like cigarettes, Pragmatic measures should therefore be taken to curb or control this menace. Only through this we can create the appropriate map and plot the path of
our journey to a better Society for ourselves, for our children and their children.