R.I.P. SMOKING BADDY ALEXANDER SPEARS III

Guess who died? Smoking baddy Alexander Spears III, who testified before Congress in 1994, along with a lot of other top cigarette executives, that he believed nicotine was not addictive and didn't cause disease. Of course, nicotine is highly addictive and does cause disease. Spears, who served as both chairman and chief executive of Lorillard, died of lung cancer at the age of 68.

We say that Spears is a baddy, but on the community level the Greensboro, N.C. resident was actually a pretty responsible, socially progressive citizen. According to the New York Times, he served as fund-raiser for the Girl Scouts, the United Negro College Fund, and Greensboro Historical Museum. Spears also served on the boards of the local United Way and the National Conference for Community and Justice, which is dedicated to fighting racism in America. So it looks like it was just his involvement with an evil corporate agenda-- coupled, perhaps, with a huge salary-- that warped the thinking of this basically good man and caused him to counteract his good works with bad ones, like trying to secretly increase the nicotine levels of his cigarettes.

As we've said before, there are lots of great reasons to smoke, but there's no sense in lying about the downside. On Satan's Patented Scale-O'-Sin, lying is definitely worse than smoking.