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Britons are getting hooked on hookahs and `shisha'

A smoking ban may be mooted in Brussels, but puffing on Arab water pipes is all the rage in Britain's hippest bars, restaurants and homes.

Cuban cigars and fashionable cigarette brands are out -- the smouldering new style accessory is the hookah, through which shisha tobacco is inhaled. There was a time when Arabs gathered in Edgware Road cafes for an afternoon puff drew curious glances from passers-by. Now, though, shisha is chic.

Smoke from hot hookahs has permeated into the heart of the West End of London and other cities across the UK.

Sometimes called nargile or even hubbly-bubbly, hookah pipes are topped with charcoal and fruit-flavored tobacco which slowly roasts.

The smoke is inhaled through a reservoir of water which aficionados claim ensures a mellow experience.

Hookah lounges have already colonized the smartest quarters of American cities, with oxygen bars and chocolate martinis rendered passe by the Arab invasion. No self-respecting celebrity is seen without a shisha tube wedged between his or her lips.

In the past, possession of a hookah in the UK was enough to have you branded a drug addict. The pipes were rarely seen outside the pages of underground comic The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers and had a close association with cannabis culture, but today's smokers seem content to stick with apple and strawberry flavors in bars.

But buoyed by calls from the European health commissioner and Britain's chief medical officer for a ban on smoking in public places, anti-cigarette groups are turning on hubbly-bubbly. Deborah Arnott of Action on Smoking Health warned that it was not a risk-free way to consume tobacco.

"Studies have shown there is a health risk associated with shisha in the same way there is with cigarettes," she said.

But her call was ridiculed by Bilal Stefo, an Iraqi who sells hookah pipes and tobacco from a Middle Eastern foodstore in Glasgow.

Surrounded by the pipes, he said: "It's crazy to talk about getting rid of these. People are just waking up to the pleasures of shisha. We started selling the pipes a because lots of locals were asking about them."
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