The Ho Chi Minh City government has submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Health that shisha be banned from businesses to protect the public’s health.
Shisa, a water-based tobacco pipe, traces its roots back to the Persian aristocracies of the 16th century. The practice of smoking shisha has made its way to nearly every corner of the globe and has become popular in bars and cafes across SE Asia.
The proposal stems from a World Health Organization (WHO) report that found that an hour-long shisha session is estimated to be the equivalent of smoking between 100 and 200 cigarettes. According to VietnamNet:
"The estimated findings go on to show that, on average, a smoker will inhale half a liter of smoke per cigarette, while a shisha smoker can take in anything from just under a sixth of a liter to a liter of smoke per inhale. Each turn of Shisha smoking often lasts for more than 40 minutes, including 50-200 inhalations, each time from 0.15 to 0.5 liters of smoke.
Reports of the WHO and the American Cancer Society showed that smoking Shisha in one hour, a person may inhale smoke of as many as 100-200 times and 70 percent of nicotine than smoking a cigarette."
Over the past few months, shisha has been labeled a social evil by the government and media, perhaps because it’s very popular among youth. If only they cared this much about cigarettes…
[VietnamNet // Photo via Farl]
