I’ve only vetoed three ads ever in four years of Blogads, and I’ll totally admit it’s a complete judgment call on my part about what runs and what doesn’t. As long as I don’t think it’s offensive, it runs. I’d run ads from the Obama campaign, though I doubt they’d get their money out of them here.

I don’t smoke. I’ve never smoked. I think smoking is dirty and smelly and unhealthy. I also think that people who want to smoke should be allowed to and that if cigarette sellers want to advertise to them they should be allowed to.

For the record, I don’t really agree with government bans on smoking in privately-owned businesses. I prefer businesses to ban smoking, but I don’t approve of governments banning it for them. Different issue.

So while I don’t agree with smoking and with that everyone would just quit, I also don’t really have an issue with running ads for it. If it was a borderline-tasteless ad, combined with a product I disagree with, I might not have approved it. But it’s a decent ad and the product is not only legal but generally socially acceptable.