As a result of the big multi-billion dollar settlement between the tobacco companies and several state governments in US, a lot of this settlement money started trickling down to state universities. This ‘puff-money’ was used to fund big-price items at various Universities. I know of at least 3 high-field NMR spectrometers (each costing several millions + cost of new facilities to house them) installed in last couple of years. This is just great news for researchers like me who work in this field to have more of these magnets around and get access to them. Also, more ‘puff-money’ is being generated through increased taxes on cigarettes.

Here is my dilemma… I know smoking is bad for one’s health. So, I would encourage my friends and family members to quit smoking. But, at the same time I would like to see people smoking to generate more ‘puff-money’ that can be used for bio-medical research.

This sounds really bad. There must be a way to make people stop smoking and fund research projects at the same time.

BTW, November 17th is the “Smoke-out” day. Keep your airways clean for at least one day, my smoker friends.