Abstract

Many biomedical studies of the past seven years have failed in giving a sound picture of what hookah (shisha, narghile, goza) smoke and smoking are. The reasons are many: from the widespread use of a confusing neologism (“waterpipe”) instead of the few clear and natural words used for centuries by indigenous and non-indigenous people in their real life, to the use of artificial smoking (machines) instead of relying on quantitative and qualitative analysis of toxicants directly performed on real hookah smokers.