MPs Email

The 5th of December debate in the parliament on regulating shisha smoking is an excellent and fascinating debate, and it is about time to deal with shisha smoking problems. The debate triggered and concentrated mainly on the social issues of the shisha smoking in public places, in the residential areas, which we found it very serious problems. However, before reading your debate, visitorsinmanchester.com has started an appeal and hoping to work with whoever willing to support banning shisha smoking in public places altogether. Please read https://visitorsin.com/index.php/shisha-smoking, which now includes some comments on the debate.  Shisha smoking has social issues. We know in some countries which may be considered by the  European Standards primitive and have less fortunate citizens than the Europeans, have dealt with shisha smoking problems by either banning it or not permitting shisha smoking places to open in towns and cities to deal with the social issues, bad smell and fire hazard. Shisha smoking places are only allowed to open a few miles outside the towns and cities in these countries.

Shisha smoking causes major health problems and most people have heard or read about the problems. Shisha smoking phenomena are relatively new in the UK, and that is why we should stop it now because if we don’t, this phenomenon of shisha smoking will spread very fast. We know that because it is getting trendy and prevalent, especially with young people. Some participants in the debate want to keep the shisha smoking open to protect some businesses that have added shisha smoking line later to their business. The shisha smoking business supposes to be only a sideline added to the company. Probably they want to protect the new business line to generate tax revenue.

We think this is a very short-sighted idea because If the shisha smoking allowed to grow with or without regulation, can we imagine how many people in the UK will suffer from the shisha smoking diseases. If we do not care about the people, don’t we care about the NHS, which is struggling now with the resources? Don't we care about the people who are working in the shisha places to provide the service of the shisha, refer to the shisha smoking link above?

We watch on the TV, now and then, adverts by the government ( we think ) to educate and encourage people to stop smoking but when we read :

 ” the average shisha-smoking session lasts about an hour and research by the World Health Organisation (WHO) reveals that 1 hour of shisha smoking can be as damaging as 100-200 cigarettes, perception that shisha smoking is not addictive because the water used in the pipe can absorb nicotine is incorrect since in reality only SOME of the nicotine is absorbed by the water, so smokers are still exposed to enough nicotine to cause an addiction, and so shisha is playing a role in encouraging people to take up cigarette smoking and fruit and herbal flavoured shisha still usually contain tobacco so again the perception that it is healthier is wrong. Even if you use tobacco-free shisha, you are still at risk from the carbon monoxide and any carcinogenic toxins generated by the coal or charcoal used to burn the shisha. “

Why the government or anyone responsible for allowing the shisha smoking to spread and without considering the WHO report. Do they wait till the problem is too big to handle and the cost too much to solve it then?

 Does the appeal to the people who are responsible for allowing this phenomenon of shisha smoking to continue to say any more than ask them to read The  World Health Organisation report.

Please ban the shisha in public places so the future governments not to give money to the NHS to deal with the diseases caused by shisha smoking. Please do it for the sake of NHS.