NOW available: a cigarette which cures coughing.
Smokers: fed up going ''hack, cough, splutter'' all day? Just puff your way through huge amounts of Kezhi Ning brand cigarettes, made in China, and your cough may magically disappear.
This could be because you are dead. Or it may be because the medicinal herbs in Kezhi Ning have cured your cough, as they did with Qu Shuying.
She was a middle-aged woman in Harbin who smoked 200 fags and found they made her throat wonderfully clear, according to testimonials from the makers.
The cigarettes are made by Harbin Wan Long International Medicine Cigarette Co, a Hong Kong-mainland joint venture.
Readers with long memories may recall that we featured this product earlier this year, as a cure for haemorrhoids (''Seven to 12 pieces of this cigarette should be smoked each day,'' it says on the side of the packet).