It seems to me that you can prove anything with statistics. If you're against smoking, you can prove that it's a huge cost to society at large. If you're for smoking, you can prove that it has little effect.
But it does seem to me that smoking makes people sick and contributes to their deaths. My mother died from emphysema. There's no doubt in my mind that she got the disease from her smoking habit. I personally believe that smoking takes a relatively heavy toll on the population, both in terms of health issues and in terms of increased health care costs for everyone. Obviously a lot of people here disagree, and that's fine.
Ultimately, the bottom line is this: if e-cigarettes pose a decreased risk, why not promote them, even if the risk of traditional smoking is far less than what's generally believed? Reduced risk is good. E-smoking is good. Win win.
