Harmful effects of chicha

CO inhalation rate

When you smoke shisha, you have the impression of inhaling a sort of "harmless perfumed vapour", much milder than cigarette smoke because you don't feel any aggression, irritation or pain in your bronchi and lungs, even if you're a non-smoker. However, contrary to popular belief, the passage of smoke through water has no filtering or purifying effect: noxious particles are only very partially retained by the water. In fact, you inhale much more smoke than you would when smoking a cigarette, and the stronger you inhale, the deeper the smoke penetrates into your lungs. It's even considered that a single puff of shisha is the equivalent of a whole cigarette!

What's more, shisha smoke contains much more carbon monoxide than cigarette smoke, since the CO from tobacco is added to that from the charcoal used.

Finally, since combustion is incomplete due to its low temperature (around 400-450 degrees, compared with 800-850 for a cigarette), shisha smoke is much more irritating to the respiratory tract than cigarette smoke.

The risks associated with passive smoking should not be overlooked either.
In fact, the volume of smoke released into the ambient air is also very high: between 30 and 40 liters of smoke on average for a shisha, depending on the number of smokers and the duration of smoking, compared with 0.5 to 1 liter of smoke for a cigarette. The smoke from a chicha therefore delivers as much carbon monoxide (CO) pollution as 15 to 52 cigarettes.
The amount of carbon monoxide present in the air in chicha bars is 4 to 10 times higher than what is generally considered a pollution alert level.).

Tar and nicotine It's not uncommon to read on packs of shisha tobacco that it contains absolutely no tar, but don't be fooled: the quantity of tar indicated on packs corresponds to unconsumed tobacco. However, it is the combustion of the plant substance that leads to the formation of tar, a carcinogenic compound…