A study presented at the American Public Health Association’s annual meeting, found that 11 percent of Florida high school students and 4 percent of middle school students had smoked hookah at least once.

For those of you who don’t know, a hookah is a big water pipe that is smoked socially like the one pictured in this post. The practice is rapidly growing in popularity among teens and college students.

With so much talk about social networking and herd thinking, it’s not surprising that social smoking is in vogue.

Every time one door is closed on tobacco use, another opens. Socially, smoking a cigarette is becoming taboo, but the hookah on the other hand becoming accepted. The problem is that it’s worse for you than smoking a cig. The urban myth is that because the smoke passes through water, it’s less harmful.

Tobacco has always had a social element to its use. Smoking was considered cool. Cigar clubs abounded in the 1990’s. Now hookahs are entering into the most social of generations. Is it any wonder?

Iowa’s campaign to persuade smokers to contact a smoking cessation helpline has generated the largest response rate of any of the 24 states and the District of Columbia that direct tobacco users to 1-800-QUIT NOW.

The campaign developed by ZLRIGNITION included a print ad, posters and this ”Never-ending cigarette” TV spot.

The campaign helped trigger 41,930 calls to 1-800 QUIT NOW from January through September. That’s more than five times the number of calls that came from Pennsylvania, a state with four times the population of Iowa. Iowa’s call volume was equivalent to 1,406 calls for every 100,000 people in the state.

Bonnie Mapes, administrator of the Iowa Department of Public Health’s Division of Tobacco Use Prevention and Control, says “The call volume to the helpline proves the campaign was a smart investment toward improving the health of Iowans.”