The Record Journal of Meriden (Conn.), Nov. 17

Once again, truth turns out to be stranger than fiction: The National School Boards Association has ended its brief partnership with a large corporation that supposedly was going to help it convince kids not to take up smoking. And which large corporation might that be, you ask? Why, it was R.J. Reynolds, the nation’s second-largest cigarette maker.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Now, we want to be fair, so let’s bend way over backward and assume, for the moment, that Reynolds was sincere in its desire to “accelerate the decline of youth tobacco use” through its “Right Decisions, Right Now” program. That is, let’s not give in to cynicism, like U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who seems to think such programs are “shams designed to create another generation of smokers” to replace those who will be killed off by … well, a good many of them by using Reynolds’ products.

Far be it from us to question the good intentions of the folks at RJR, but they did promote the Joe Camel cartoon character in their commercials, for nine years, in what the Stanford School of Medicine called “a transparent effort to greatly increase their market share of young smokers.” And the American Medical Association did charge that the Joe Camel campaign was targeting children. Reynolds, however, always denied that allegation, and also claimed that “Right Decisions, Right Now” was an effective anti-smoking program.

For its part, the National School Boards Association probably just wanted the issue to go away. “The debate about Reynolds involvement was a distraction from our larger efforts to promote student health and well-being,” said Executive Director Tom Gentzel. (In its Resolutions for 2014, the association devotes exactly one sentence to smoking: “NSBA urges Congress to continue to expand support for school environments that are free of tobacco and tobacco-like products.” That’s Resolution 19, out of 20.)

But well done, NSBA, for ending a relationship that was a bad idea from the start.