Africa-Press – Botswana. Smoking a hookah or hubbly bubbly as is it popularly called, is increasingly becoming a popular pastime among young people.
Social media platforms such as FaceBook and or Tik-Tok are awash with photos and videos of young girls and boys inhaling vapour from hubbly bubbly, which can be enticing to others.
In his research, University of Botswana, Health and Environment student, Wame Dira found that most youth think hubbly bubbly is less harmful, but it poses the same health risks as cigarette smoking.
He therefore called on Minister of Health (MoH) to ban the use of hubbly bubbly in Botswana.
“They have banned the use in Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya amid health concerns, I do not see why it will not be banned in Botswana,” said Wame. He said he wished young people could understand the risks they were exposing themselves to.
Wame explained that the charcoal used to heat the tobacco could raise health risks by producing high levels of carbon monoxide, heavy metals that may have cancer causing chemicals. He noted that most young people today experienced first time smoking using a hubbly “as even the name sounds cool,” but in consequent they become addicted and put their lives in danger.
Wame advised young people to stop smoking all those that come with fashion, especially that their lungs were still developing and as such smoking could cause permanent damage. He said hubbly bubbly was not less harmful than cigarettes because its smokers were exposed to risks of the same kind of diseases, including cancer, heart and respiratory diseases as well as adverse effects during pregnancy, caused by cigarette smoking.
“Smoking hubbly bubbly is not a safe alternative to cigarette smoking” he said, adding that a single puff is equivalent to smoking 36 cigarettes at a go.
He pointed out that the health risk hubbly bubbly posed to users qualified it for banning noting that it contained nicotine, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, polyaromatic hydrocarbons arsenic and lead.
More worrisome, he said, was that some smokers now added a mixture of things including drugs, which had adverse effects such as addiction, depression anxiety and brain cancer.
MoH spokesperson, Dr Christopher Nyanga said hubbly bubbly, though not illegal in Botswana, was risky and dangerous to health.
He said MoH did not encourage its use given the health risks associated with it. “As suggested in some quarters, its ban would benefit the country because a lot of people would live healthier lives without the risk of diseases that the substance causes,” he said, adding that banning hubbly bubbly would also mean that the country’s expenditure on conditions caused by the substance would be greatly reduced.
“The act of smoking hubbly bubbly causes users to inhale more of the product as they drag in the smoke through a pipe; essentially users inhale more smoke at one time, more than that of a cigarette,” he said, adding that the product lead to cancer of the mouth, lungs and bladder.
Moreover he pointed out that the sharing of water pipes also meant that germs could be transmitted from one user to the other.
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