UAE
Researchers at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in the United Arab Emirates have found that alternative tobacco products (ATPs) such as shisha and medwakh, a small smoking pipe popular in the region, contain harmful elements.
The researchers studied a wide variety of commercially popular shisha charcoals and dokha, a tobacco usually mixed with herbs and spices and used in medwakh, and found the presence of trace metals such as iron, lead, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, and manganese at concentrations similar to, if not higher than, cigarettes.
They also found that smoke emitted from these ATPs contain a wide range of compounds including carcinogens and central nervous system depressants that can adversely impact health.