Animus, it would probably be safer to actually just smoke a cigarette once in a while than to smoke a hookah. The reason is because the cigarette is tobacco just like in the hookah, but when you take a drag off a cigarette, you don't take huge lungfuls in, and hold it, letting out billowing white clouds of smoke laced with burnt sugar. With a cigarrette, you only take small puffs. It feels less harsh with a hookah simply because the hot smoke gets cooled down when bubbling through the water, just like a bong. Anyone who happens to be reading this, please don't think I am actually promoting the smoking of anything. Lungs were made for oxygen, not smoke!