THE DANGER IN SHISHA- Mohammed Abubakar Usman

I never heard of the word " Shisha " until that bright and mind soothing evening , I sat somewhat adjacent to a lad of average age , unfortunately I wasn't such a person of great exactitude to ascertain his real age, but I estimated his age as 16 years.
Facing the boy was a girl almost of same age. What I can secure correctly is that they're all teenagers, the look on their faces and their inherent 'ajebotic' modus-operandi accentuates their personality. The texture of their skin represents a picture of perfect happiness.
They appear to be from affluent family if my guess seemed correct! There's a perfect balance between their personality and what they were doing. The distance that separates us wasn't far enough that they could take no notice of my presence. For that reason my presence seems conspicuous.
The duos were sipping a smoke from a pipe that was attached to a long elastic tube that draws the smoke through water. You can easily notice that they were contented with the palatability of the content of the mixture. They acknowledged my presence and appreciate it by expressing that cheerful attitude of 'Bisimillah ' as an invitation to join them.
I smiled a little and asked ‘what it is?’ They smiled in response to my query and said: ‘It is Shisha’ I asked again: ‘Don't you think it's a reorganized version of tobacco?’ The girl assertively said: ‘NO! It is Shisha and it contains nothing but flavour’. That was the very moment when I began to gauge the difference between us. As an student emeritus of chemistry, I know the medical repercussion of smoke as it gets into the body system in whatever form, but here I am amidst people who are ignoramus of that. With that in mind, I opened a floodgate of dialogue with these chaps to gauge the connection between their knowledge, age and perception and then again to find a reason to write this epistle.
The result of that conversation promotes an urgent need for this piece. This epistle firmly asserts that we live in a generation where our youths are reduced to a mere copycats and they are growing up with that kind of mentality of a 'if you can't beat 'em - join 'em'. There's also the had mentality of 'it originates from the West and Arabs' which many of our youths hold tenaciously and are ever ready to be defensive whenever someone attempts to be corrective.
Our youths are dyed-in-the-wool and embrace cultures that reduce them to abbreviated pieces of nothing. If Shisha smokers believe their habit is a strict adherence to Arabian-Western-Culture, they should also remember that educated, faithful and civilised people every where in the world don’t smoke, because they know, to smoke, in whatever form poses a serious potential health hazard.
One with average grade in chemistry can easily conclude that Shisha is more dangerous than cigarettes, the depth of inhalation, frequency of puffing and the length of the smoking session poses more serious health challenges than cigarettes. The Charcoal in the Shisha increases chance of disease and delivers more smoke in the body than popular tobacco.
Tuberculosis, herpes, hepatitis can be transmitted through sharing of the same mouthpiece of the Shisha pipe. Smokers, who believe that Shisha consumption is a social activity or a hobby, and it is harmless, need to read more on Shisha and its chemical content. For the benefit of this generation, my little investigation into its chemical mixture reveals that Shisha contains numerous toxic substances; Carbon monoxide, tar and cancer causing substance (nicotine) and other 4000 chemicals of which 398 are poisonous and 71 are cancerous.
If you insist you must copy a civilised for some sacred reason, the best way to do that is by copying theveork of Charles Dawin, Robert Hooke, Charles Dawin or any frontline Scientists like Albert Einstein. Doing only that will elevate your status in the societal spectrum and the name of your family would be at the top of the esteem ladder.
And if you are exposed to Shisha because of its popularity, or firm belief that it is harmless, it may interest you to know that it's poisonous to your ingenuity, and all addicted Shisha smokers need to limit their exposure to it. It is never (in any way) connected to civilisation; instead it stained your reputation in the eyes of the public. Shisha is not a measure of your exposure or education. It doesn't dignify your position in the society. If you think smoking dignifies you, then what, exactly, is “dignity?”
Shisha smoking is only a display of your ignorance of its detrimental effect on your body system. No matter how highly adept or amateurish you are in smoking this dirty mixture (Shisha), none of your family member will be proud of you and your doom is near. If you are aspiring to be great, and be recognised, study hard. And if you want to be look with reverence, don’t smoke!