Angry? Stressed? Upset? Just light one up! There is that calming sensation that fills up every inch of your body when you light a cigarette; then you are able to exhale your worries away. Inhale, relax, and exhale.

While that relaxing sensation takes effect, you never think about the carcinogenic gases you have inhaled. You have put the Surgeon General’s warning in the back of your head.

Your cigarette is your best friend, when you are upset, after a test, after a breakup, he’s always there for you. He’s even better after a couple of drinks, always ready to cheer you up.

But wait, how well do you know your buddy cigarette? According to NOVA Online, a PBS documentary series Web site, his skinny body is not only full of tobacco, but also of reconstituted tobacco paper and expanded tobacco.

Reconstituted tobacco paper is made of different parts of the tobacco leaf and mashed stems sprayed with some 600 chemicals; one of them is ammonia. If it wasn’t for the tobacco industry, all those would go to waste.

On the other hand, expanded tobacco, also known as “puffed tobacco,” is real tobacco. However, it is sprayed with gases — again, one of them is ammonia. Then it is freeze-dried in order to double its size, allowing the tobacco industry to produce more cigarettes.

By now you are probably about to put the newspaper down or read the next article that catches your eye; you are sick of hearing people tell you about the effects of cigarette smoking.

I know, I know, I was also sick of hearing “warning, cigarette smoking is dangerous” … until one day it hit me.

According to the World Health Organization, the use of tobacco is not only killing about five million people a year, it results in an annual global net loss of $200 billion.

Also, if smoking patterns continue, by the year 2025 there will be about 10 million tobacco-related deaths every year. Then we wonder why so many people die of cancer, or what could be a reason for so much poverty in the world?

The facts have always been there, but we never want to pay attention. Until someday someone you love suffers from the effects of cigarette smoking.

I will tell you I smoked. I have no memories of when or how I started, but I do remember the day I seriously decided to quit.

I was getting really good at quitting: I had probably quit quitting two or three times. But one day a phone call from home changed my point of view. I was talking to my dad, like usual, but then he gave me terrible news. He had been diagnosed with throat cancer. My dad smoked for 20-some years.

Although I knew cigarette smoking could cause cancer, his news was a slap on my face. That day the dangers of cigarette smoking became a reality to me. I decided to quit.

However, craving after craving, I realized how I did not control the cigarettes I smoked, but how much they controlled me.

I thought that smoking a cigarette was a decision I made, but it was then I realized that my dear buddy cigarette would whisper in my ear “let’s go out for a cigarette break” every second of the day. I always love to say that I control my life, and if controlling my life means to quit smoking, that is exactly what I will do.

Smoking is the wrong way to deal with anger. It is even more dangerous if you are not yet in your 20s. According to an article at www.endi.com, Dr. Elba D¡az Toro, associate director of the tobacco control center at the University of Puerto Rico, says “it is between the ages of 13 and 20 that individuals develop strategies to deal with feelings of anger and frustration. When they smoke, they never develop those strategies […]”

If you have never smoked, do yourself a favor and never start. If you smoke, think about your health and the health of those around you; secondhand smoking is as bad as smoking an actual cigarette.

Find a different way to relax; when you are upset, after a break-up, or after a test, remember that you paid to have that fake buddy, cigarette, with you.