Spam is a blight on the internet, everybody should take measures to ensure that they don't send or receive spam. It wastes the time and energy of mailing systems (most of their workload is dealing with spam, instead of genuine messages, and you end up paying for that with higher ISP bills). It spreads viruses, hoaxes, threats, and malicious mail. And nothing that you read in spam should ever be trusted (including those fake options to unsubscribe yourself; never respond to spam in any way, at all).
Get yourself anti-viral software so spammers can't slip something onto your system that will use it to send out spam. Spammers often compromise other people's machines, so they can use them to send out more spam. You shouldn't let yourself get used in that way, or abused to carry out illegal activities by someone else (which you'd get help accountable for).
Use mail filtering so spam doesn't clog your mailbox and obscure the messages that you want to see. Good automatic filtering can sort your mail for you, putting spam out of the way, where you can check it if you need to, but don't have to weed through it to find your normal messages.
And don't forward chain letters, including ones that warn people about spam or viruses (those chain letters are spam in themselves). Join the mailing list for your anti-virus or anti-spam software so you get warnings about what's currently going on (from a source that isn't just spreading rumours), and let other people do the same thing (let them join such lists, instead of you spamming them with warnings and hoaxed warnings).
All spam should be illegal, with no exceptions, and no loopholes for anyone to be claim that their spam wasn't spam! All spammers should be punished hard on the first instance: Their businesses should be totally destroyed! Anyone spamming should be bankrupted! They should be made completely penniless, and not retain any assets, at all! (Lose their house, all savings, everything!) Repeat offenders should have their hands amputated!