From the BBC:
Smoking a shisha pipe is as bad for people as smoking tobacco, the Department of Health and the Centre for Tobacco Control Research has found.
People who smoke shisha, or herbal tobacco, can suffer from high carbon monoxide levels, its research revealed. It found one session of smoking shisha resulted in carbon monoxide levels at least four to five times higher than the amount produced by a cigarette. High levels of carbon monoxide can lead to brain damage and unconsciousness.
While it is indisputably true that high CO levels can be very harmful or fatal, if you read that second paragraph in one go, it might make you think that smoking can lead to sufficiently high CO levels to cause such damage, which is, frankly, complete bollocks.
Monday 24 August 2009
Misleading juxtaposition of the day
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8 comments:
Yup. As a regular Sisha smoker, though not now quite so regular since reading that WHO report that claimed one hour of it was equivalent to about 100 cigarettes, i cocked an eyebrow at the wording of this article last night. The way the statement "High levels of carbon monoxide can lead to brain damage and unconsciousness." is just stuck on without any attempt at providing proper explanation or context with relation to shisha smoking is piss poor journalism.
Comrade Beeb completely on gov message again. Unless there are a hell of a lot of rabid anti-smokers on the Beeb web-site's copy staff.
100% of all non smokers die.......so who gives a toss?
"...if you read that second paragraph in one go, it might make you think that smoking can lead to sufficiently high CO levels to cause such damage"
I rather think that's the point. Balance and accuracy disappeared over the horizon some time ago.
Their logic goes along the lines of 'cigarettes = Bad, therefore anything that produces more of what cigarettes produce MUST in fact be worse'
I notice they don't mention anything about carcinogens or second hand smoke, I can only assume these are less than cigarettes and are therefore irrelevant to their argument.
I like the fact that they even had to throw in the dread lurgi as an anti as well
"Qasim Choudhory, a youth worker at the NHS Stop Smoking Service in Leicester, said sharing a shisha pipe could pass around infections.
"There's a heightened risk of getting TB, herpes and infections like that," she said.
"Now you know swine flu is on the top of the agenda right now - there's no kind of direct correlation,
"No kind of direct correlation" that's because it's bollocks love, isn't it? Like all the other shit you bansturbators come out with.
It might help if it was clearer what was being smoked in shisha pipes.(BTW there is confusion whether shisha refers to the substance smoked or the means of smoking it,more commonly referred to by Brits, thanks to years of exotic behaviour in the Raj,as a hookah.)
I was assured by a young Arab woman that the smoking material did n't contain tobacco when it certainly smells like it does (under the apple/fruity flavourings).Apart from reports that a pipeful is equivalent to 200 cigarettes, I can confirm that these things are dangerous: the young lady concerned knocked the whole thing off the table and burnt a hole in the carpet.
If I still smoked seriously I'd give a hookah a go ( spelling of the essence here).You can get them with multiple pipes so you don't have to share a mouthpiece;passing the smoke through water can't do any harm can it?Might do some good even.
A world renowned Shisha expert seems to agree that it's ... err ... crap.
He has mentioned it to the BBC too.
DP, well spotted.
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