What is a 'hookah' or 'shisha'?

What is a 'hookah' or 'shisha'?

Linda Hyder Ferry (Associate Professor, Preventive Medicine and Family Medicine, Loma Linda University School of Medicine) gives expert video advice on: What is a 'hookah' or 'shisha'?; Are hookah or shisha water pipes safer than cigarettes?; What is a 'bidi'? and more...

A 'hooka' or 'shisha' is a way to heat tobacco, and bring it with suction through bubbling water, the gas, so that it cools, and then the cooled vapor is breathed into someone's lungs. It's a habit that actually originated in the Middle East and has now infiltrated the whole world. Tobacco itself was not the only thing originally breathed in 'hooka' pipes, but tobacco is what's legally supposed to be used. It's spreading around college campuses in the United States at an amazing rate. People think, oh, but this isn't like smoking that hot smoke into your lungs, it's cooler so it must be safer. And it's flavored, it frequently has a flavor, so people think this must be totally different from smoking a cigarette.