The American Cancer Society was dismayed and disturbed by your recent article about hookah bars in the Chicago area (“It’s OK to inhale,” At Play, Sept. 21). While it may be legal to inhale tobacco through a hookah, it’s extremely detrimental to the smoker’s health. Smoking a hookah is no safer than smoking cigarettes since all tobacco contains nicotine (regardless of the amount), which is highly addictive–especially for young people. Cigarettes, cigars, smokeless tobacco and pipe tobacco found in hookahs all contain dangerous toxins that can cause cancer.
In fact nine in 10 lung cancer deaths–the leading cause of cancer deaths–are directly attributable to tobacco use.
It’s important to understand that there is no safe tobacco product, although tobacco companies work hard to convince us otherwise by developing such products as low-tar cigarettes. A study by the American Cancer Society that compared lung cancer risk between smokers or reduced-tar and conventional cigarettes found low and ultra-low tar cigarettes do not reduce the risk of lung cancer.
