On-campus residents have cashed their shisha for the last time outside their residence halls.
 
Hookahs, popular legal water pipes, are no longer allowed in or outside University Residence Halls after a rule change that went into effect this semester.
 
A hookah is a pipe that stands upright and is smoked through a hose. The tobacco, known commonly as shisha, is heated by a coal, and the smoke passes through water at the bottom of the pipe.
 
But hookahs can also be used to smoke marijuana, said Director of Residential Life Steve Waller.
 
Hookahs were recently added to a list of banned drug paraphernalia in the University Residential Life 2010-11 Living on Campus Handbook.
 
“Possesion or use of drug related paraphernalia, including but not limited to bongs, grinders, hookahs and pipes is prohibited in and around the adjacent property of the residence halls and apartments,” according to the handbook.
 
“There’s multiple uses for [hookahs], and I don’t want to have to run a test every time I come across one,” Waller said.
 
Any hookah found in or around a residence hall will be confiscated, and the incident will be reported, Waller said. Some Pentagon residents found that out the hard way.
 
Brandon Clark, advertising freshman, said he didn’t receive an e-mail from ResLife notifying residents that hookahs are now banned.
 
“It’s in the handbook, which no one reads,” Clark said.
 
Rachel Weaver, mass communication freshman, was forced to move her hookah off campus, she said.
 
“I’m keeping it at my friend’s apartment because it’s no fun here,” Weaver said.
 
Brent Fontenot, mechanical engineering sophomore, had his hookah confiscated the first night he was on campus when he brought it out in the Pentagon courtyard.
 
“I didn’t know anyone around here, so I figured I would bring my hookah out,” Fontenot said. “Hookah’s a very social thing.”
 
Fontenot said he was smoking hookah for about 20 to 30 minutes in the courtyard when a pair of resident assistants came up to him and told him that smoking hookah was against the rules this year. They told him they would have to confiscate the hookah.
 
“I asked ‘Could I just get a warning?’ and they said ‘No, we have to take it from you,'” Fontenot said.
 
Fontenot did eventually get his hookah back after meeting with a student conduct official, he said.
 
Nursing freshman Brooke Kennedy disagreed with ResLife’s categorization of hookahs as drug paraphernalia.
 
“Hookahs are for tobacco,” Kennedy said. “And people smoke cigarettes here all the time.”
 
Waller said the LSU Police Department confiscates all drug paraphernalia found by ResLife staff.
 
Sgt. Blake Tabor, LSUPD spokesman, said hookahs are not a top concern for the department.
 
“[Marijuana being smoked out of a hookah] is not something we typically see here,” Tabor said.
 
But Tabor said it doesn’t surprise him that ResLife considers hookahs drug paraphernalia.
 
“Common sense will tell you tobacco is not the only use for [a hookah],” Tabor said.
 
Tabor said using a hookah alone is not enough to get in trouble with LSUPD.
 
“If it’s a situation where they’re legitimately smoking tobacco, we’re not going to have much to do,” Tabor said.
 
Wellness Education Department Coordinator Kathy Saichuk said students need to be aware of the dangers of smoking hookah.
 
Hookah’s unique system of pulling smoke through water could pose unforeseen health consequences to students, Saichuk said.
 
“Because of the water, what’s going to happen is the moisture will increase the absorption of the smoke in the soft tissue of your lungs,
which can increase the chance of health complications,” Saichuk said.
 
“The best thing is for people not to smoke anything,” she said.
 
 
 
—-
Contact Frederick Holl at [email protected]