two brown students have opened an after-hours hookah bar at a popular off-campus eatery. to do so, they sought advice from brown’s entrepreneurship program and are now competing for a $15k program grant.

it’s always nice to see people strike out on their own and find success. given the recent media reports of the rising appeal of hookah bars nationwide, it’s likely that “smoky waters hookah bar” will do well, if the principals nurture the business properly.

several students are less than happy about the venture, while others have commenced howling about personal liberties.

smoking is an entirely legal, “adult” pastime. huge corporations make billions every year peddling the weed that is known to cause several types of cancer, contribute to heart disease and hypertension, and so on and so forth. it’s enough of a health problem that the CDC has a whole office devoted to smoking and health. kills about four hundred thousand americans every year, costs the nation billions in healthcare.

but, like i said, it’s entirely legal, so why shouldn’t two bright young men make money exploiting the desires of their insecure classmates to be hip and cool at the expense of their health, just like the multinationals do?