Beware The Bong: Paraphernalia Addiction
Oct 18 at 6:06pm by Aileen
Plus… DNA Pioneer Watson Steps in it Again
This week there are a couple of notably humorous science news stories making the rounds, to the delight of all science-watchers who sometimes suspect that scientists take themselves way, way too seriously.
First up we have researchers at the University of Memphis informing us that Water pipe use is as addictive as smoking.
Whoa! Who’d have thought that the pipe you smoke is as addictive as what you’re smoking through it? Yet this is just what Dr. Wasim Maziak warns…
“As water pipe use is increasing throughout Europe and North America it is very important that we initiate comprehensive research efforts to combat this looming epidemic,” Maziak said in a statement.
Don’t laugh too hard. Someone funded this research, and it was probably us.
So take heed, children! There’s a reason for the high cost of bongs, and more than just their high class looks and smoke-mellowing abilities to explain your fondness for this ancient and clever apparatus. If you’re really trying to beat addiction, you need to toss that pretty little (or not so little) knick-knack out along with your stash!
On another front, Nobel Prize laureate and co-discoverer of the structure of DNA James Watson has managed to get himself in trouble once again by speaking his mind in public. In an interview published in London’s The Sunday Times he asserted that Africans – for Watson, that’s all people of African descent – are biologically inferior to Europeans (i.e., white people) in the intelligence department.
The reactionary backlash began immediately. His comments drew condemnation from British lawmakers and equality campaigners as well as from his fellow scientists. Over at the Seed Magazine Science Blogs the reaction was swift and loud from insulted colleagues who decried Watson’s ‘racism’ roundly but mostly didn’t address the evidence Watson appealed to.
London’s Science Museum quickly canceled a scheduled lecture by 79-year old Watson, who is chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. Cold Spring Harbor earned notoriety in the first decades of the 20th century for its role in promoting Eugenics policies and laws.
Watson’s opinions about race and sex are widely known and always controversial. He shocked an audience during a lecture at UC Berkeley in 2000 when he claimed a link between melanin (skin color) and sex drive. That time, he said…
“That’s why you have Latin lovers,” he said, according to people who attended the lecture. “You’ve never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.”
We can get a giggle from Watson’s impolitic habits of speech, as they are quite humorous. We might also find it a little odd that scientists and scientific institutions are so quick to censor him. Academic freedom and all that. As opposed to actually tackling the masses of scientific research and sociological applications (like IQ testing) that tend to provide empirical evidence to support a range of abilities across groups of people.
Maybe this time Watson’s statements will motivate researchers to re-examine past studies and current social applications to see exactly how and why they produce such prejudicial results so consistently. As opposed to just complaining that an individual scientist doesn’t mind using those results to support his personal bigotry in public.
Links:
The Island of Doubt: Inevitability of Stupidity
9 Responses for "Beware The Bong: Paraphernalia Addiction"
messenger
January 6th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
1I incedently came across Aileen’s entry rediculing waterpipe research
“IWhoa! Who’d have thought that the pipe you smoke is as addictive as what you’re smoking through it? … Don’t laugh too hard. Someone funded this research, and it was probably us”.
And my response is that if Aileen wants to laugh then she should laugh of her ignorance. Some quick facts, first there is a widespread popular belief that the passage of smoke through the water purifies it from addictive and harmful substances (so you need research to verify these claims), second the tobacco used in waterpipes is fundamentally different from that of cigarettes (most of it are additives and it is prepared by different processes, which can reflect on its delivery of nicotine), third the tobacco smoke constituents and temperature of the waterpipe is very different from cigarettes (affects nicotine release and absorption), and finally addiction of this social tobacco use methods is not only chemical has a social dimension that is different from cigarettes.
So please don’t play smart when you are not.
Best
Messenger
Aileen
January 12th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
2Thanks for the comment, Messenger. The portion of this post dealing with Dr. Maziak’s dire warning of a “looming epidemic” of addiction to water pipes was tongue-in-cheek precisely because everything and anything human beings take a fondness to can be considered “addiction” only by diluting the definition of what it means to be addicted. IOW, it places the very real danger of physical addiction to substances such as nicotine or opiates (opium being the traditional filler for oriental water pipes) on a par with a person’s lifelong loyalty to Corvettes or strong preference for sweat pants over jeans. There are much better and more effective ways to warn of the dangers of hooka-smoking – the impression that the device somehow makes the substance less physically harmful or physically addicting – than to pretend that the device itself *is* an addictive substance/thing.
Precision should be the name of the scientific game, in all arenas of practice. Deliberately conflating subjects and issues for socio-political purposes (a.k.a. propaganda) does no favors for anyone, either those examining the subjects and defining the issues or the interested public trying to stay informed.
messenger
January 13th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
3If you read the statement correctly, it says nothing about a looming epidemic of addiction to waterpipe. Your are mixing two separate statements to make a point that does not exist. Since you seem to know what science is, you should probably consider that one of most important qualities of a person of science is self-criticism and admission of being wrong.
Best
Messenger
Aileen
January 13th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
4The statement says what it says. A “looming epidemic” of addiction to waterpipes, not to the nicotine smoked through a waterpipe. The original link I gave the day after this story first appeared has changed, and now reads,
Waterpipe Smoking of Tobacco is Increasing, But Research Lags Behind. I presume the original through-link to UPI led to more lampooning of its bad science writing than just what I wrote here.
…but it’s still about developing “cessation interventions” for waterpipe users, to get them off their addiction to waterpipes. That they are addicted to nicotine is a no-brainer, since we all know that nicotine is addictive. The re-write states:
“Many people believe that because the tobacco smoke is drawn through water, it is less harmful than other forms of smoking, but the evidence accumulated so far does not support that assumption. It also appears that using a waterpipe is as addictive as other forms of tobacco smoking.”
I question whether a drug delivery system can itself be classified as an addiction. One can be habituated to sucking on a pipe or a cigarette or a pencil to gratify an oral habit, but not all habits are addictions and not all addictions are habits. This sort of sloppy science, science writing and science reporting is for some of us a source of humor as well as some sense of irony at how easily such things can get misconstrued on the way to being universally misunderstood.
messenger
January 14th, 2009 at 9:36 pm
5This is the original statement “As waterpipe use is increasing throughout Europe and North America it is very important that we initiate comprehensive research efforts to combat this looming epidemic,” (the original link is http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071016195914.htm and this, contrary to your claim, has not changed since it was first published on Oct 17, 2007. This fact is verifiable from the source).
You can be stubborn, sarcastic, or pretending to be all knowledgeable, but you cannot twist facts or statements without a proof. For the benefit of education anyway, an important component of addiction is behavioral and has nothing to do with nicotine, but much to do with the vehicle. In the case of waterpipe the allure of the artifact itself and its associated ambience has been shown as drivers for use. Because of associative reward cues, features of the vehicle itself become essential to the dependence/addiction syndrome. So we actually develop interventions to curb waterpipe addiction, not nicotine addiction in the waterpipe as you suggest. If addiction to tobacco use products was nicotine, we would have finished it long time ago with nicotine replacement products. Not astonishingly, de-nicotinized cigarettes suppress part of the withdrawal and craving symptoms.
Best
Messenger
Aileen
January 15th, 2009 at 12:11 am
6Well, best of luck with your waterpipe addicts, I can see they must be a big, big problem somewhere. I have never met one, and no professional I asked in my region said they knew any either, though they had met many substance abusers/addicts. Hookas just must not be that popular in my area, as there are many other, less expensive drug delivery systems. But from the display of emotion, I’m sure hooka-addicts must be among your gnarliest hard-cases, along with those burl pipe and rolling paper addicts.
Keep up the good work!
messenger
January 15th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
7Good luck to you also.
Best
Messenger
Scooter
February 1st, 2009 at 6:36 am
8How the hell did this article go from the topic of bong smoking to eugenics and white supremacy?
First of all,
June 7th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
9who really gives a damn about smoking tobacco? Smoke weed! It’s: less addictive, more fun, less cancerous, and overall better for you. Soft drinks are worse for your health AND mind than marijuana. People do stupid things on weed? Well then why have there been ZERO incidents at the gatherings on 4/20 at Boulder, Colorado? where ten thousand people gathered to celebrate and fight the oppressive bullshit of our government? They were all baked out of their minds, and no one was hurt! They all drove home with no accidents. Inform yourself. Those of you who aren’t informed about pot-smoking (if your knowledge of marijuana is limited to what t.v. tells you or what you “learned” in Health class, this includes you) should do yourselves a favor and visit norml.org. They know the facts. Or talk to stoners, they also know the facts. But most importantly, if you won’t inform yourself, at least do all of us a favor and shut up about what you don’t know. You have been lied to by your government, and as fanciful as I know that sounds to a lot of you, it’s most likely the truth.
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