Cigarettes may not be the only legal smokable substance posing a health hazard for users.

Hookah bars across Oklahoma offer smokers alternatives to cigarettes and cigars. However, Laura Beebe, epidemiology professor and co-chair of the OU Cancer Institute Outreach Advisory Committee, feels hookah is just as threatening as cigarettes.

“The scientific studies that have been done on the hookah have demonstrated that the dose of nicotine is just as high, if not higher, because of the longevity of the smoking session, as compared to cigarettes,” Beebe said.

In Oklahoma it is legal to own and operate a hookah bar where patrons order a hookah and share it amongst themselves. Moe Davani, who owns Moe’s Hookah Bar, says the water in the pipes protects users.

“For the filtration they use a pure water, and [the smoke] goes through the water and it will filter it,” Davani said.

However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides information contradicting Davini’s statement.

According to the CDC, the charcoal used to heat the substance increases the health risks by producing high levels of carbon monoxide, metals and cancer-causing chemicals.

The smoke then passes through water, but that doesn’t stop the smoke from delivering these chemicals into the body. Irritation from exposure to tobacco juices increases the risk of developing oral cancers. The irritation by tobacco juice products is likely to be greater among hookah smokers than among pipe or cigar smokers because hookah smoking is typically practiced more often and for longer periods of time.

Beebe feels smoking a hookah also presents other problems.

Smokers tend to smoke a hookah for much longer periods of time than they would smoke a cigarette, Beebe said. On average a person may smoke a cigarette for five to seven minutes, while a person smoking a hookah pipe smokes for upward of 40 minutes, Beebe said.

Another overlooked problem with smoking a hookah pipe is second-hand smoke, which is just as much of a problem with smoking hookah as it is with smoking cigarettes, Beebe said.

Sharing the hookah pipe can be dangerous, Beebe said. The warm, moist environment of the mouthpiece can easily share bacteria or germs from one smoker to another.

The health hazards that come with smoking a hookah pipe don’t stop some students, zoology junior Lauren Beltran said.

“Smoke isn’t going to be good for you no matter what, but I think everything in a certain amount of moderation is OK.”