Bronx Bodegas Cater to Potentially Harmful Hookah Habit
Bodegas throughout the Bronx sell hookah products, which can have harmful health effects. Photo credit: Getty Images
By Barbara Sam
The new social trend of smoking hookahs, or water pipes containing tobacco, is making teens and young adults especially vulnerable to health risks. Hookah and e-cigarettes are not traditional cigarettes, but they also contain the highly addictive substance known as nicotine. A recent study published in the American Heart Association’s Journal states that smoking tobacco in water pipes results means inhaling toxic chemicals that may harm the heart, at levels that exceed traditional cigarette smoke.
Smoking already endangers teens in particular. A recent study reported that one in every five high school students uses e-cigarettes, a habit heavily encouraged by flavored tobacco marketing, social media promotion and misperceptions regarding its addictive potential and health effects.
Teens and young adults are more prone to becoming addicted to nicotine from excessive smoking through the use of hookah and e-cigarettes. The National Academy of Medicine study found that increasing the age that one can purchase tobacco to 21 results in less smoking. For years, tobacco companies have created advertising campaigns targeted towards teens and young According to a 2014 Cigarette report by the Federal Trade Commission the tobacco industry spent $9.1 billion on marketing for cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products.
Today, tobacco has been camouflaged with flavor, which causes more people to be less concerned with the idea that they are smoking non-traditional cigarettes. There are many misconceptions about the addictive potential and potential adverse health effects of the use of flavored of tobacco. the Center for Disease Control 2017 survey concluded, 19.3% of New York high school youth reported they used tobacco product, including e-cigarettes. Among New York high school youth, 5.5% reported to smoking cigarettes.
The popularity of water pipes has also increased demand for hookahs, which are available along with an assortment of flavored vapes and electronic cigarettes at local bodegas in the Bronx. In Kingsbridge bodegas, just blocks away from the Lehman College Campus, there is a lot of foot traffic,. Many customers are shopping not for candy but instead for hookahs and accessories as well as cigarettes. Several stores in the neighborhood contain display cases filled with flavored vapor cartridges, smoking accessories and full hookah bowls.
Millie Anaya, a Bronx Resident, came to a bodega on Fordham Road to buy blueberry flavored tobacco to smoke hookah at home. “They have what I need here, and it’s closer to my house. Its convenient, I get off the train, I buy and then go home.” Anaya added that although she smokes and enjoys hookah with flavored tobacco, either alone or with friends, she does not smoke cigarettes.
Minutes later another young woman and student at Mercy College came into the same store to buy charcoal for her hookah bowl. Within 20 minutes of standing inside the store more than one third of the customers came into the store solely to buy a tobacco related product.