> "There is no virtue in meaningless asceticism."

Quite right.

As a side note, that's not the case with e-cigarettes, the health risks are largely unknown and there appears to be a fair amount of variation in the chemical composition of the different brands. Here's a level-headed article about some of the early studies into e-cigarette health risks:

http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/electronic-cigarettes-hel...

The very first time I saw an e-cigarette was an infomercial on tv. Its central message was "now you can smoke in a non-smoking environment," which rather pissed me off. E-cigarettes probably aren't particularly healthy--they're certainly not sufficiently clearly so that manufacturers will try to market them as such.