Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - Controversial Australian euthanasia campaigner Dr. Philip Nitschke has introduced his latest contraption to facilitate suicide - a device that enables people to breathe in poisonous gas through a face mask.

Nitschke hopes to begin selling what he believes to be a world first next year, after its official launch at a Hemlock Society conference in San Diego next month.

He unveiled the plans at a meeting in Queensland state Monday, presenting the machine as a way for people to die quickly and peacefully in the absence of laws allowing voluntary euthanasia.

Although they will enable users to breathe in pure carbon monoxide, Nitschke said they would be marketed for other purposes - as an oxygen mask - to circumvent any attempt by the government to stop their distribution.

The move comes at the end of an eventful year for Australia's leading advocate for euthanasia, who heads a group called Exit Australia.

His association with a patient who died at her own hand last May, surrounded by 21 friends and supporters, prompted a police investigation, seizure of his records and calls for him to be debarred from medical practice.

Nancy Crick said she had terminal bowel cancer, but a post-mortem found this to be untrue. Nitschke later admitted he knew she was clear of the disease, but that this was irrelevant because she was still "hopelessly ill."

In recent weeks, three other Australians have killed themselves by taking a fatal overdose after attending workshops hosted by the doctor.

Married couple Sydney and Marjorie Croft, both 89, and Lisette Nigot, 79, were\b all in relatively good health when they died. All three sent Nitschke farewell notes thanking him for his support.

The news prompted a strong response from pro-lifers and others. Prime Minister John Howard said he firmly believed that "we should not be encouraging healthy people to take their lives, no matter what age they are."

Nitschke also drew criticism this year from the government and pro-life groups with his proposal to manufacture heavy-duty plastic bags with drawstrings, which people could use to suffocate themselves.

The "exit bags" were billed as an improvement on a Canadian model, which the Australian government said it would not allow to be imported.

As with the "exit bags," the latest contraption will only be sold - for under 100 Australian dollars ($55) each - to members of Exit Australia, Nitschke said in Queensland.

He dismissed criticism that the device was gruesome.

He accused his critics of hypocrisy, saying the government refused to legalize voluntary euthanasia and allow people access to the barbiturate Nembutal, which he described as "the best of drugs" for suicide.

That left hanging as the "commonest way people die over the age of 75 in our society," he said.

The Australian Medical Association has come out against Nitschke's latest plan, saying it does not condone any measures that enable people to kill themselves.

"Doctors are trained to save lives and not to take them," said the association's Queensland president, Russell Stitz.

Nitschke's meeting in Queensland on Monday was one of some 20 euthanasia workshops he has held across the country this year.

Participants are asked to sign a disclaimer beforehand, undertaking not to use information they receive at the meeting to "assist in the act of suicide, either of myself, or of any other persons."

January's conference in San Diego is the 12th biennial national conference of the Hemlock Society, a group calling itself "America's largest and oldest dying-with-dignity association."

Writing in National Review last week, Wesley J. Smith of the International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide drew attention to the Hemlock Society's association with and backing for Nitschke and his "death-on-demand philosophy."

"Through their moral and financial support of the odious Philip Nitschke, the Hemlock Society has revealed its true colors," Smith said.

"Society should judge the organization and its advocacy, accordingly."

Nitschke's participation in the Hemlock conference will include a discussion entitled "What's New in Hastening the Dying Process (Methods and means for maintaining control, and how to get them.)"

The Jan. 9-13 gathering will also feature the governor of Hawaii, Ben Cayetano, who has been pushing euthanasia legislation similar to Oregon's, and the controversial, pro-euthanasia retired Episcopalian bishop of Newark, John Spong.