Tobacco Pharmers.

I've just watched Wes Craven's 'Wishmaster' again, because I've been sorting through the DVD collection. It's funny what you notice now that all enjoyment is banned. In that film even the monster smokes - and he does it on business premises and nobody even questions it!

If any interdimensional creatures bent on recreating Hell on Earth appeared now, there would be terror and mayhem unless the creature lit up in a public place. Then the Council Stasi would come down on him like a ton of bricks.

It just wouldn't be the same if the creature pulled out an Electrofag. It would be funny though. I might write that into a story somewhere.

Speaking of Electrofag, it seems they have been rediscovered by the tobacco companies, but they say it'll take them three years to develop theirs. Talk about reinventing the wheel. Although if anyone did reinvent the wheel, they'd have to go through marketing and safety testing for years before they built their first cart.

Then the cart would have to be safety-assessed before they added a horse. If the Romans had run their world like we do they'd never have had an empire. By the time they'd completed testing and market research on the horse and cart, they wouldn't be allowed to park it anywhere.

The new one isn't a proper Electrofag. It's an 'inhaler' so it's going to look like some kind of humiliating baby-dummy thing and it'll be just as useful as patches and gum. The tobacco companies didn't invent it. They bought it from an antismoker.

The aerosol nicotine-delivery system was developed by Jed Rose, director of the Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research at Duke University.

This is Doctor Patches, whose previous research led to enormous profits for the Pharmers while having no effect on smoking at all. No wonder the tobacco companies want to buy his work.

He defended his decision to sell to the company, saying: 'By avoiding the burning process altogether, finding a way of giving smokers nicotine to inhale but without those toxic substances that we can reduce the death and disease associated with smoking.

Electrofag is doing exactly that already. But what's this about 'defending his decision'? If it's his invention he can sell to whoever he likes, surely? I see no need to 'defend my decision' to sell my work to a private company rather than donate it to the NHS. I've been penniless. It's not nice. The NHS are more in the way of the research than encouraging it. If I was tied up with them I'd have starved to death by now - or worse, run out of whisky and sobered up. The horror!

Yet he feels the need to 'defend his decision' as if he had made a pact with the red guy himself. No, not Santa. The other fireplace guy. The one who doesn't drink or smoke and who has an ideal BMI. Yes, that's him. The one the Antis worship.

'The other methods of delivering nicotine fall short of providing smokers with the satisfaction that they crave,' Mr Rose said.

You know, having all these antismokers telling me why I smoke is becoming as tiresome as the fake statistics at the end of every article and the outpourings of spite and bile from the vicious little frustrated gas-chamber guards in the comments.

I do not smoke to get an aerosol sprayed down my neck. If I liked that sort of thing I'd be addicted to anti-perspirants. This idiot has no idea what I 'crave' but I'll tell you it's not his silly little spray. Electrofag is a decent substitute even without nicotine because it mimics the action of smoking. Patches do not, gum does not, and this ridiculous little gadget will not. For me at least, it's not about the nicotine. It's about the whole thing and if you don't like smoking, get the hell out of the way because my previous considerate attitude has evaporated under the weight of sneering and nasty antismoker superiority. You think you'll die from second hand smoke? You will one day, and I am happy to help convince you of this. And your children. No compromise.

So why does a tobacco company want this pointless gadget?

Spokesman Peter Nixon said it may take three to five years to develop a commercial product that would be considered an alternative to conventional cigarettes.

Rubbish. The mechanism is already on sale. All you need do is tweak it enough to dodge patent law. Others have managed it, that's why there are lots of producers.

I can think of two reasons. Remember those old conspiracy theories about an engine that ran on water? The story goes that the oil companies bought all the patents so they could sit on the information and stop anyone else patenting one. This could be what Philip Morris are up to here. If they think it will work, it'll never be quite ready for sale. They hold the patents so the Pharmers can't have it. Although if it actually worked, the Pharmers wouldn't want it and neither would ASH.

If they think it won't work, it'll be on sale in no time. How could anyone resist a slice of that Big Pharma action? Sell something that won't work, wait until the customer relapses and sell it to them again. Then get the NHS to buy it and hand it out for free. The producer gets paid either way.

Although if you're selling tobacco and the tobacco-cessation gadget that won't work, you are into serious money. You can't lose.

Tobacco companies or Pharmers, the only loser will be the smoker. We can't trust either of them.