Microsoft's Bill Gates and the Mayor of New York have pledged $500 million to stamp out smoking.

Michael Bloomberg and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plan to spend the cash on persuading governments in developing countries to implement policies and programmes to reduce tobacco use.

The dynamic duo describe what they term 'the global tobacco epidemic [which is] the world's leading cause of preventable death,' claiming that tobacco use killed one hundred million people in the 20th century, and if current trends continue, it will claim one billion lives in the 21st century.

The money will go to organisations including the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, along with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the World Health Organization and the World Lung Foundation.

One of their demands is that governments raise the price of tobacco products by 'significantly increasing tobacco taxes'. It is hard to see what scope there is for this as, in the UK, tax already accounts for 89% of the price of a packet of cigarettes.

The UK government received £10 billion in tobacco tax revenue in 2007. That's almost $20 billion, making Bill and Mike's $500 million to save the entire world look more than a little inadequate.

The two philanthropists also fail to address the implications on employment and tax revenues in the very emerging countries they are trying to help if the tobacco industry is closed down. Again using the UK as an example, smokers contribute roughly three times as much through tax as it costs the health service to treat smoking-related diseases.

Of course, if Bill and Mike want to reach a little deeper into their pockets and give every government on the planet the amount they raise in tobacco taxes each year, something might actually be achieved. Demonising the tobacco industry while governments profit far more from smoking suggests that the two philanthropists have got entirely the wrong end of the cigarette. X