Spam

I am a new blogger and have been swamped with spam from cialis, viagra, gambling sites sending spam through Southwest Airlines. Currently averaging 80 – 100 per day. I’ve added some key words to my Settings/Discussion comment blacklist to identify these as spam. However I’m not sure it is working as I received 10 more spam comments since making the changes. I have two questions on this topic:

1) Do I want this kind of traffic to my blog? I’ve assumed I do not but maybe that is the wrong assumption.

2) Is there a better way to handle spam then adding words to the blacklist?

I appreciate anyone’s thoughts. Thanks.