According to the study, “18.5% of 12th-grade students admitted to using a hookah in the previous year.” I’m trying to wrap my mind around this:
- Are they buying hookahs over the Internet? Or going to their local head shop and picking one up? Online, it appears that a hookah goes for about $100 (give or take a few dollars on either side).
- Are they hiding their hookahs from mom and dad?
- Okay. So you’ve got a hookah. You need tobacco to put in it. Isn’t shisha subject to the same laws as any other tobacco product; for example, the over age 18 requirement?
- Are kids going to hookah bars to smoke instead? We have some hookah bars in Austin; I’ve never been to one, not being much of a smoker, but I figured they wouldn’t admit anyone under 18.
- “In addition, the authors argue, because shisha is often smoked in designated hookah bars, which tend to be exempt from ‘no smoking’ rules, the rules must be changed to eliminate that exemption.” Huh? So basically, they won’t be satisfied until hookah bars are completely outlawed?
Maybe I’m stupid, but I just have a real hard time visualizing large numbers of teens either buying hookahs and tobacco off the Internet and smoking with their friends (and all the fuss that entails) or hanging out at the local hookah bar.
Unless by “teens” they mean “18 and 19 year olds”, in which case they need to smoke a heaping hookah of STFU flavored shisha.
Meanwhile, in the LA Unified School District, “student stores” are making money hand over fist selling food to students unhappy with the school cafeteria’s “healthy” options.
Street price for a bag of Flaming Hot Cheetos is a buck, by the way.