In Defense of Burqa against the Relevant Background of Tobacco Prohibition

Burqa (the woman’s veil in South-East Asia) is an efficient means to circle totalitarian laws prohibiting tobacco use, enacted “in agreement with” the pseudo-scientific Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC).

In an ethnological study, CJ Charpentier (Anthropos, 1974) reports what he has personnally witnessed in Kabul, Afghanistan, by March 1972:

« I once observed in Kabul a veiled lady renting a water-pipe in the street. The boy who owned the pipe lit it for her and she then placed the pipe under her chaderi and sat down smoking a few metres away from the busy street ».

Quoted for the first time in the following reference book (page 223): Le narguilé. Anthropologie d’un mode d’usage de drogues douces [Eng.: An Anthropology of Narghile: its Use and Soft Drugs], Paris, 1997, L'Harmattan, 262 pages.

Image : Courtesy of Ktemoc

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Unethical German Gas Chamber Study Published in the Food and Chemical Toxicology Journal

The Food and Chemical Toxicology journal has published so far a series of strongly biased studies on a ““waterpipe””™ smoking machine (US-American University of Beirut). It has now published a paper based on an unrealistic and unethical experiment led by a team of German experts from the Bavarian Health and Food Safety Authority, Bavarian Environment Agency, and the Federal Institute for Risk Asessment:

Hermann Fromme, Silvio Dietrich, Dieter Heitmann, Holger Dressel, Jürgen Diemer, Thomas Schulz, Rudolf A. Jörres, Knut Berlin, Wolfgang Völkel: Indoor air contamination during a waterpipe (narghile) smoking session. Food Chem Toxicol. 2009 Apr 23.

This experiment consisted in consecutive hookah smoking sessions FOR ABOUT 4 HOURS in a room of 20 m² (volume 57 m³) in which THE WINDOWS WERE KEPT CLOSED. The experts also used quick-lighting charcoal and a tiny amount of the smoking product to make things better.... By accepting to publish such a study (by the way full of other speculations about addiction, cancer and so on, not to mention the levels of toxic substances they have found), the Food and Chemical Toxicology journal has also endorsed the great hazards of the about 240 litres of smoke (*) to which the victims (called “volunteers” in the publication) have been exposed in the gas chamber: namely Christine MOSCH, Franziska NACHTMANN and Elcim SECKIN. According to an independent source, this constitutes a violation of the Helsinki Declaration on “Ethical Principles for Medical Research Involving Human Subjects”.

(*) 240 litres: calculated according to the standardized US-American University of Beirut smoking machine which represents the unanimous and world best model for hookah smoking. Hookah smoke contains the same carcinogens as those found in cigarettes. For memory, cigarette smoke -and therefore hookah smoke which has no scientific reason to be different- contains almost 5000 chemicals. Therefore, and since a single cigarette hardly generates 0.5 litre of smoke, the inflicted torture was that of smoking the equivalent of 480 cigarettes (240 : 0.5), each containing 5000 chemicals. The same source adds that “these human guinea-pigs were only thanked for “for their substan[t]ial support and for smoking the waterpipe”.

However, they were not informed that their life would be endangered and were not told why ventilation would not be allowed as it happens in all hookah (narghile, shisha) lounges of the world”.

CONCLUSION

1. Pray for Christine MOSCH, Franziska NACHTMANN and Elcim SECKIN. Write to them and advise them to bring the German Agencies and their ““waterpipe”” researchers to court.

2. All this in the name of Hookah Environmental Tobacco Smoke and Hookah Third Hand Smoke (forced charcoal emissions…) !

3. Question: What is hazardous for health: ““Waterpipe””™ smoke or ““Waterpipe””™ experts ?

4. Other question: Lies, Fake Reports, Fake Posters and Images, Lies again, Plagiarism, Junk Studies by the Dozens, Gas Chambers…. Where Will Antismoking Extremists Stop ?

RELEVANT READINGS

New Conjuring Trick by US-American University of Beirut’s Illusionists. Tons of Aldehydes Found in Narghile (Hookah, Shisha) Smoke… You’re Dead!


"United Kingdom Ban on Smoking in General and on Hookah Smoking in Particular Should NOT Stay", Analysts Say

Tetralogy of Hookah World Premieres Now Complete with Pioneering Study on Hookah and Cigarette Passive Smoking (Environmental Tobacco Smoke)


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Narghile, Sex and the US-American Univer-City of Beirut... Tobacco Control, Prostitution and the City of Bombay...

WARNING: Decide from the beginning if you wish to laugh or cry (particularly if you are Lebanese or an Angry Arab).

Image (left): Supposedly "evidence-based" photomontage (*) prepared by the Ministry of Health of Lebanon with the scientific support of the tobacco experts of the US-American University of Beirut.

(*) Has anybody ever seen such a short hose ?
(*) Then, a narghile hasn't got a male sex... It is a female object as any user knows. The most relevant comparison would be a feeding (baby's) bottle, not a sex organ ! These researchers from the US-American University of Beirut are apparently sex maniacs !

It is said that:

1. The US-AUB “is hard at work to promote effective and implementable non-smoking policies. Team members Alan Shihadeh and Najat Saliba, two professors from engineering and chemistry, respectively, have already identified the complex mechanism by which a water pipe delivers chemicals to smokers [please don't laugh!], while Associate Professors Rima Afifi and Monique Chaaya have been studying public perception and behavior with respect to smoking-related topics.”

2. “Most recently on March 7-12, six faculty members [US-American University of Beirut] participated in the 14th World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Mumbai, India, which was attended by about 2500 scientists, government officials, and health organizations from 130 countries [You're dead !]. There, they shared their latest findings with top researchers in the field”.

3. “Moreover, Research for International Tobacco Control, a secretariat of the Canadian-government-affiliated International Development Research Center, has granted about $37,000 to allow Nakkash and her colleagues, Afifi and Chaaya, to evaluate the implementation and enforcement of smoke-free policies in Lebanon"

SOURCE OF THIS GREAT PAPER: News Highlights : AUB team conduct research to help snuff out nargileh and cigarette smoking. The official organ of the US-American University of Beirut Office of Information and Public Relations, April 01, 2009. Posted by Maha Al-Azar, Media Relations officer.

COMMENTS OF THE OBSERVATORY

1. Ghazi Zaatari (the guy with the white shirt) is also cited for heading the department of pathology and laboratory medicine and being a member of the US-AUB tobacco group. What is not said is that he is also (and above all) the Chairman of WHO TobReg (WHO study group for the regulation of tobacco products) and that he personally selected a researcher from his own university (US-AUB) to draft the WHO report (“Advisory Note”) on ““waterpipe”” which proved to contain a long series of serious errors (critique here)... Very democratic, no ? Even More Democratic than the UN Insecurity Council...

2. Therefore, all these nice people went Bombay to attend the 14th World Conference on Tobacco or Health ? D’you know what, folks ? Two Big Pharma companies were official sponsors of the event ! An “event” about whihc one independent researcher pointed out:

"To prostitute oneself is defined as 'selling one's abilities, talent, or name for an unworthy purpose". "By accepting Big Pharma money in order to fund its symposium, the World Conference on Tobacco OR Health, in my opinion, is selling its name for what I consider to be an unworthy purpose. The Conference is allowing itself to be used as a pharmaceutical marketing agent, simply to make money, when the over-reliance on pharmaceutical agents is in my opinion one of the main reasons why smoking cessation efforts and policies have been so ineffective."

Source: Why Quit News: World Tobacco Conference Accused of Prostitution March 13, 2008

3. The US-AUB Tobacco Control teams are therefore not only sponsored by their own US university but also receive extra funding from Canada. The RITC is known for having among its strategic partners two Big Pharma companies: Glaxo-Wellcome Smith Kline Beecham and Merrck-Frost (details here). As for Health Canada, it wisely advises Canadians not to use electronic cigarettes because as long as they are not “tested”, they would represent a great danger…

CONCLUSION

Big Pharma, through its big funding of ““waterpipe”” research, has been trying in vain to sell nicotine patches, gums, Zyban and Chantix (Champix) to “hookah addicts”. Remember the song:

All Hookah Addicts of the World, Let's All Chant...ix !

Perhaps Big Pharma may now help “impotent” narghile smokers thanks to its Viagra ? Or should this medicine be administered to ““waterpipe”” research in the aftermath of its ideological and scientific collapse ?

By the way, if you meet these tobacco control researchers one day, please ask them to show you the concrete scientific evidence that “narghile smoking causes impotence”... and warn them in your turn that gambling with public money is a crime that will not remain unpunished indefinitely. The fees (dozens of thousand dollars) paid by WHO (World Health Organization) to experts are, in the end, public money, that of tax payers.

This "public health" parade of pseudo-science is just pornographic science. Independent Lebanese and all free-thinkers of the world will judge by themselves.

RELEVANT READINGS

New Conjuring Trick by US-American University of Beirut’s Illusionists. Tons of Aldehydes Found in Narghile (Hookah, Shisha) Smoke… You’re Dead !

[updated April 27]

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Powerful Collaboration with the California’s Clean Air Project: "Hookah in Your Community: Ideas for Action"

The Observatory on Hookah or Health is happy to announce a powerful collaboration with the California’s Clean Air Project. Here are the mainlines of the project titled "Hookah in Your Community: Ideas for Action", originally designed by ETR Associates.

EXCERPTS:

“Currently, there are over 90 hookah venues in California [Now, there are hundreds]. Their growth has tripled in the past three years. The primary concerns over hookah are both health-related and compliance-related (Labor Code 6404.5, The California Smoke-free Workplace Law). If you have questions about hookah […] or need further assistance, please contact CCAP (California’s Clean Air Project) at 916-452-8065" (page 3)

"When a hookah smoker is exposed to hookah smoke (the addictive stimulant nicotine) for 45–60 minutes, it is the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes" (page 4)

"Hookah tobacco contains the same chemicals found in all tobacco, including nicotine, carcinogens and nitros[a]mines. Secondhand hookah smoke contains the same cancer-causing particulates found in secondhand cigarette smoke. In addition, the charcoal used in the tobacco heating process produces the toxin, carbon monoxide" (page 4)

Diana Bonta, Director, California Department of Health Services-July 21, 2003: “The use of hookah pipes is not a safe alternative to cigarette smoking. Smoking hookah pipes has been reported to cause oral, oesophageal and lung cancer as well as heart disease, chronic bronchitis and of course, nicotine addiction” (page 4)

"All bona fide retail tobacco shops are exempt from the California Smoke-free Workplace Act (Labor Code 6404.5) and may allow smoking inside an enclosed workplace. A hookah venue that serves food and/or beverages for consumption on the premises does not meet the definition of a tobacco store. Therefore, it cannot claim an exemption from the Smoke-free Workplace Act and allow smoking indoors. Obtaining a tobacco retail license from the State of California allows a hookah business to sell tobacco. However, such a license does not allow for smoking of the product inside a workplace where the Smoke-free Workplace act otherwise prohibits smoking.

“A ‘tobacco store’ is defined as a retail business that meets all of the following requirements: (A) Primarily sells tobacco products. (B) Generates more than 60 percent of its gross revenues annually from the sale of tobacco products and tobacco paraphernalia. (C) Does not permit any person under 18 years of age to be present or enter the premises at any time, unless accompanied by the person’s parent or legal guardian, as defined in Section 6903 of the Family Code: (D) Does not sell alcoholic beverages or food for consumption on the premises”" (pages 4-5)

"Violation of municipal codes regarding disturbing the peace – behavior of young and underage hookah customers who have over indulged at the pipe and vomit on sidewalks and streets in front of and near hookah establishments" (page 6)

"Another relevant California code, Health & Safety Code 113775, states: “Food means any raw, or processed substance, ice, beverage, including water, or ingredient intended to be used as food, drink, confection, or condiment for human consumption.” This code section is relevant because it further stipulates that hookah pipes cannot be smoked indoors where food is consumed and cannot be used in any enclosed area" (page 9)

Note: "Hookah tobacco and cigar tobacco contain the same chemicals found in all tobacco, including nicotine. Secondhand hookah and cigar smoke contain the same cancer-causing chemicals found in secondhand cigarette smoke" (page 11)


IDEAS FOR ACTION (page 10)

"# Are you concerned about hookah venues in your community ? In California, there are hookah bars, cafes and lounges that may not be compliant with the California Smoke-free Workplace Law Labor Code Section 6404.5. The following ‘Ideas for Action’ are ways to learn more about these venues and how to improve compliance with the law in your community".

"# An excellent activity for staff and coalition members to do together or separately: Visit each hookah venue in your community and stay for at least 30 minutes. Order something to eat or drink if available, sit down, and just observe what is going on. Are pipes being smoked indoors or outdoors? What is the average age of the customers? Is food being served? Are beverages being served? Do you see minors present? Are minors being allowed to smoke hookah pipes ? How is the tobacco being sold, by block (large) or square (small) ? Is there a hookah menu or advertisement about how much the tobacco or pipe rental costs? If so, pick up a copy. If you feel comfortable, ask the proprietor if hookah is smoked indoors or outdoors. Please pass this information onto CCAP (contact information below)."

"# Create a database of hookah venues for county or the cities in your area. Include the name of the establishment, address and phone number. With this information you are assisting statewide tobacco control organizations who are collecting this data; you are also helping your local law enforcement agencies."

"# If you have received complaints about a hookah venue, contact local law enforcement and ask them to investigate. Give them any information, activity reports, or complaints you have collected. Inform them of the law and how hookah venues are affected by Labor Code Section 6404.5."

"# Tell law enforcement officers that free hookah tobacco testing is provided by CCAP. Officers are often told by proprietors that hookah tobacco is not really tobacco or that it is only a fruit mu[a]ssell product. Testing will prove that there is nicotine content in the tobacco."

"# Submit a letter to the editor of your local newspaper. Tell about the health dangers of smoking hookah tobacco and the addictive qualities of hookah tobacco."

"# Use the fact sheet in this packet to support your efforts."


An excellent study by Kamlesh Ashotra: "What You Don’t Know Can Kill You" (pages 12-16)

Quoteworthy: "It is becoming increasingly clear that, like tobacco smoking, mainstream hookah smoke and second-hand hookah smoke cause deleterious effects on reproductive systems in men and women and produce genotoxic, mutagenic, and teratogenic effects on babies of smoking parents.These effects include infertility in females and sterility of males, and low birth weight 26, 27 and birth defects in babies born to smoking mothers. A recent study of 100 Egyptian infertile women determined that the couples’ infertility was due to sterility of husbands who were hookah smokers.

High concentration of CO is a major component of second-hand smoke from hookah. The contribution from burning charcoal in hookah may also have significant and deleterious effects on young babies that may be exposed to mild CO levels. Even at very low levels, such as 25 to 50 parts per million parts of air, CO can produce permanent damage to the inner ear in young babies and irreversible loss of hearing" (page 14)

Download full Document (heavy pdf) from
California’s Clean Air Project
877-388-Ccap (2227). 2210 21st Street, Sacramento, CA 95818. The United States of America. A project of ETR Associates

Banning Hookah Lounges City after City with Your Help, Yes We Can !

Vista (California): City to Ban Tobacco Lounges

Menifee (California) Considering Banning Hookah Businesses

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New Study Finds Hookah Carbon Monoxide Most Hazardous Type of All Existing Carbon Monoxides in the World

A new Study, not yet published in a peer-reviewed journal, reveals that hookah carbon monoxide (CO) is actually the most hazardous type of all existing carbon monoxides in the world. The preliminary results have been released and forwarded to public health decision-making bodies.

The greater toxicity of hookah CO has been tested in a laboratory. Main symptoms are: acute dizziness, collapse, loss of consciousness (of the self, of others and of the hookah itself). Only emergency physicians can assess the neurological and physical state of a hookah-specific CO intoxicated hookah smoker. Carboxyhemoglobin was found to be generally very high: 50%. HOT (Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy) is always mandatory. Neurological examinations and post-neurological assessments are always very long.

RELEVANT READINGS:

DMRD Division (Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division), located in Newark, Delaware.


Image: Archives of the Observatory. Courtesy of Florence Cestac. Published in Metro (daily newspaper, not transportation), Jan 24, 2008.

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