The Satanic Verses of Hookah and Passive Smoking (1st Part)

On the eve of the 40th Anniversary of May 1968 Events in Paris, local health officials, in a neo-McCartyst move, are pushing police to enforce a pseudo-science based ordinance against hookah lounges. In this context, we invite free-thinkers to contemplate a few censored satanic verses about hookah smoking and environmental tobacco smoke ("passive smoking"):

"When passed through water (50 cm3), the combustion gases of cigarette smoke have no inhibitory effect [on the respiratory epithelium cilia]. Water fixes in a remarkable way the active agent whose solubility appears to be the main reason of such a fixation […] This solution is all the more active that the smoke of a greater number of cigarettes is bubbled though. Therefore, the active substances are concentrated in the water."(p. 420)

"The widespread use of narghile [hookah, shisha] among peoples of the Middle East, which makes smoke bubble through water, empirically secures its purification. One can understand this way how they [these peoples] can, without apparent disorders, smoke dramatically greater quantities of tobacco than ours in our countries "(p. 423)

SOURCE: Work carried out by the Laboratory of Applied Physiology to Sub-Marines. CEPSM Marine, Toulon (France). A team led by R. Guillerm, Chief Medical Officer of the Laboratory.

PUBLICATION: Guillerm R, Badré R, Vignon B. Effet inhibiteurs de la fumée de tabac sur l’activité ciliaire de l’épithélium respiratoire et nature des composants responsables [Inhibitory Effects of Tobacco Smoke on the Respiratory Epithelium Ciliary Activity]. Académie Nationale de Médecine 1961 (13 juin):416-23.

ORIGINAL IN FRENCH : « Les gaz de combustion d’une cigarette après un barbotage dans un volume d’eau d’une cinquantaine de centimètres cubes n’ont plus aucune action inhibitrice. L’eau fixe donc d’une façon remarquable l’agent actif, dont la solubilité semble devoir être la cause principale de cette fixation […] Cette solution est d’autant plus active qu’on y fait barboter la fumée d’un plus grand nombre de cigarettes. Donc il y a bien concentration dans l’eau des substances actives. » (p. 420)

« L’usage largement répandu chez les populations du Moyen-Orient du narghilé, qui réalise un barbotage de la fumée dans l’eau, en assure empiriquement l’épuration ; on peut ainsi comprendre qu’elles puissent fumer sans troubles apparents des quantités de tabac plus considérables qu’on ne le fait dans nos pays » (p. 423).

The Observatory on Hookah and Health is ready to cite and comment in detail numerous examples of this kind, be it in a justice court or in any public free debate.

READ ALSO on this site:

Tetralogy of Hookah World Premieres Now Complete with Pioneering Study on Hookah and Cigarette Passive Smoking (Environmental Tobacco Smoke)

Hookah ETS (Environmental Tobacco Smoke) for Beginners

“Hookah (shisha, narghile) “Passive Smoking” is a Fraud [Le « tabagisme passif » du narguilé est un leurre]

Seven Thousand Billions of Ultra Fine Smoke Particles in a Single Hookah (Narghile, Shisha) Session and Yet their Users are Still Alive…

Official "Waterpipe"™ “Experts” Launch Star War against Shisha (Hookah, Narghile) Smoke Particles

May 1968-2008 in Paris: Police is Here to Stay (Paris, 40 ans après Mai 68: la police (de la pensée, pseudo-scientifique, ...) est toujours là...)

A Tribute to Ernst L. Wynder and Dietrich Hoffmann. The Narghile Decade (other previously revealed Satanic verses)

Image : National Library of Medicine

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