Résumé
Tobacco smoking is hazardous for health. However, not all forms of tobacco use entail the same risks and the latter should be studied and compared in a sound realistic way. Smoking machines for cigarettes [which are consumed in a few minutes] were early designed as a tool to evaluate the actual intake of toxic substances ['toxicants'] by smokers. However, the yields [tar, nicotine, CO, etc.] provided by such machines poorly reflect the actual human smoking behaviour known to depend on numerous factors [anxiety, emotions, anthropological situation, etc.]. In the case of narghile smoking, the problems are even more complex, particularly because of the much longer duration of a session. A recent study from the US-American University of Beirut was based on a field smoking topography and claimed consistency with a laboratory smoking machine. We offer a point by point critical analysis of such methods on which most of the 'waterpipe' antismoking literature since 2002 is based