harm of cigarettes and other tobacco products. Today Mr. Coffman is the manager of the Tobacco Policy and Control Program for the Philadelphia Department of Public Health. He says he loves his job so much that he is a little sad when the end of the week rolls around. His goal is to help adults stop using tobacco and prevent young people from starting. It’s an important job, he says, because smoking causes or contributes to many serious health problems. They include lung cancer, heart disease, and strokes. Mr. Coffman fights to counter the many messages from the tobacco industry that encourage people— especially youth—to use tobacco. “Many young people underestimate how addictive nicotine is,” he says. He also warns kids against vaping. Vaping is when someone inhales vapors of nicotine and other chemicals through e-cigarettes or other electronic nicotine delivery systems. These systems often add flavors such as gummy bears and cotton candy, which makes them extremely popular with young people, Mr. Coffman says. “Vaping is not harmless,” he says. “No young person should be exposed to nicotine in any quantities.” Ryan Coffman Standing up against tobacco use Ryan Coffman started smoking cigarettes off and on when he was a teenager. He says he wanted to fit in with his friends. He wanted to be seen as rebellious. By the time he was in his mid-20s, he was smoking about 40 cigarettes a day. He says he decided to quit because he felt cigarettes were damaging his health. But it was hard. The first time he tried, he went “cold turkey”: He woke up one morning and told himself he wouldn’t smoke a cigarette ever again. “I was crying on the third day I was without a cigarette,” he says. That was because he was addicted to the drug in cigarettes called nicotine. “I wish I had never started,” Mr. Coffman says. “One of my greatest achievements in life was to stop smoking.” It took him three tries before he finally succeeded. At the time, he was serving with the Peace Corps in the African country of Kenya. After returning to the United States, he started graduate school, where he decided he wanted to educate others about the 8