Guest Post by Prof. Michael Sycophant: I am not addicted to the satisfying, smooth, and flavorful taste of six-figure grants from the noble and highly-regarded tobacco industry.

By Prof. Michael Sycophant

Paul Campos of the University of Colorado is once again confused by my independent research with Joe Camel and Marlboro Cowboy. Our masterwork, The Cardiovascular Value of Smoking, was not funded with grants, and is the product only of the scrupulously objective analytical rigor made possible by my absurdly cushy and well-paid job as a Junior Valet at the Smoker’s Union. 

Two follow-up studies-- "The Best Time to Start Smoking is Right Now" and an upcoming study of the comparative pleasurability of smoking according to college major, race, and gender, are funded through grants from Chemotherapy is Fun Inc., an independent provider of health care solutions, and from the Smokers Emissions Council, which is an important provider of research into why adorable dolphins would be totally heartbroken if you don’t light up immediately. 

The funding provided through these grants is used to acquire software and equipment (Dude, I’m getting a Dell!), a teaching buyout to relieve my beautiful mind of the burdensome time-suck of yapping at a couple of classes of thick-headed losers who couldn't even get into Harvard, a staff of obsequious flunkies to cater to my every whim, and summer vacation stipends, as well as to attend conferences at important luxury resorts. 

There has never been an effort by the Smokers Emissions Council or Chemotherapy is Fun, Inc. to censor our findings in spite of the fact that our results are completely favorable to them. Joe Camel, Marlboro Cowboy, and I are proud of our success in securing funding from such highly-regarded organizations. Furthermore, grant funding of important scholars like myself is extremely common. For instance, just off the top of my head, I can name a host of researchers who have received grants from organizations such as the National Science Foundation, and who have conducted research into weighty matters like antibiotics development and child abuse. Are you against science? Antibiotics? Saving children? 

Critics claim that my alleged addiction to nicotine money is some kind of hushed-up little secret, but actually the sound of my morally diseased hacking could rouse the dead. I believe in transparency, and these critics are clearly blinded by the obfuscatory smoke of their own toxic jealously. With better data, obtainable by placing $220,000 in my transparently outstretched palm, everybody can win—be they smoker, nonsmoker, tobacco company, or dolphin.