Are shisha pens bad for children?

Answer 1

Users of shisha pens are basically vaporizing and inhaling antifreeze. That right there is enough to give me pause.

There's no hard evidence that they're actually harmful, but there's also no real good reason for kids to be using them.

If the choice is between shisha pens and cigarettes, no contest, let them have the shisha pen. But if the choice is between shisha pens and NOTHING, then I personally would vote for nothing.

Answer 2

Everything is "bad at all." Water. for instance; you can drown in it.

That said, history is littered with things that medical science used to think was perfectly fine, before finding out (often horrifically) that it wasn't. Cocaine used to be used in children's cough syrups, for example.

In this case, you're basically vaporizing anti-freeze and breathing it. Propylene glycol (the antifreeze in question) is metabolized in the body to pyruvic acid (fine, your body makes this all the time), acetic acid (another thing your body is well-adapted to deal with), lactic acid (ditto again) and propionaldehyde, which ... um ... is kinda poisonous.

"So far there don't seem to be any harmful effects in most people" is about the best we can say for sure.