More of our money going up in smoke? Today we report that MEPs have paved the way for millions of pounds to be poured into tobacco farms in Bulgaria and other EU countries. We don't blame tobacco farmers for trying to squeeze everything they can from the EU's hugely generous system of agricultural support: they are only doing what farmers of all kinds in every EU country do, which is to lobby for their own interests and ensure that they are rewarded with as much money as possible from the collective kitty. What is puzzling is that the EU's representatives should even be considering reintroducing financial support for the growing of tobacco, which was withdrawn in 2004. The crop has only one main use (although there have been some attempts at diversification): the manufacture of cigarettes. While there are claims that, at some point in the future, tobacco leaves might be used to make something that does not kill people, at present their use is restricted to providing smokers with the product that gives them cancer, emphysema, and a range of other fatal diseases. The EU, meanwhile, is committed to trying to stop people smoking. It already spends tens of millions every year on advertising whose sole purpose is to help smokers give up their habit. Perhaps we should not be surprised by the irrationality of the move towards subsidising tobacco production while simultaneously funding efforts to discourage smoking - but surprised we are. The reintroduction of subventions for tobacco could result if amendments to the Common Agricultural Policy are passed that would give individual countries more discretion over how they spend their agricultural grants. It would be understandable if Greece, Bulgaria and Italy wanted to use a portion of the money to prop up their declining tobacco farms. It is possible that the MEPs who voted in favour of the amendment were not fully aware of what they were doing. But whatever the explanation, the result is that the EU might once again be in the position of supporting the production of a crop which is known to cause the deaths of thousands of people who use it exactly as the manufacturers instruct them to. We might admire the EU's apparent conversion to the idea that people should be allowed to take their own risks, within the law - if it did not involve squandering millions of pounds of British taxpayers" money. If the EU really wants to improve its citizens" lives, it should get rid of the agricultural subsidies that distort markets and lead to waste and overproduction.