aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

A hookah’s not a bong

Demetri Martin’s Trendspotting segment on The Daily Show last night (Part 1, Part 2) looked at hookahs.

Somehow I had missed that they were a trend.

But it does give me reason to recall that I only learned a month or so ago how hookahs work. From an article in Slate on medicinal marijuana:

Marijuana need not be burned to release its medicinal components. When the plant is heated to a degree short of combustion, its active ingredients become vapor and are released without the accompanying smoke.

That’s the secret of the hookah - vaprization! No nasty tar and nicotine. So does that mean when you use a hookah you are not really “smoking?”