Smoking hookah has become popular among the college crowd lately and reports show that hookah is becoming popular among American youth as well.
Globally, there are about 100 million hookah smokers.
Hookah is a water pipe that passes tobacco smoke through water before it's inhaled.
The water, however, does not filter out any toxins and is just as harmful as cigarettes.
Hookah is usually smoked in a group and has a variety of attractive flavors like mint, cherry, apple or coconut.
The mix of the social setting and candy-like names of hookah are likely one reason for its growing popularity among kids.
According to a study by the American Cancer Society in 2012, among high school seniors, 17 percent have smoked hookah in the past year.
Because of the setting, a group can spend, on average, an hour smoking hookah, making it equivalent to about 200 puffs per person.
It takes about 20 puffs to smoke a cigarette, so only one hour of smoking hookah is equivalent to smoking 10 cigarettes.
Hookah contains tobacco and high levels of carbon monoxide from the charcoal heating the tobacco.
There is a false belief that hookah is not as harmful as cigarettes but, in actuality, hookah smoke has the same harmful effects that cigarettes do.
In fact, hookah can be more harmful because of the longer time spent smoking it.
In most states, kids need to be at least 18 to purchase and smoke hookah.
However, most hookah bars in the United States do not require kids to be 18 to enter the premises.
So it's not uncommon to see underage teens in a hookah bar having easy access to smoke and being exposed to second hand smoke.
Bottom line: Talk to your kids about the harm of smoking hookah.
They may not realize it's just as bad for them as smoking cigarettes.