Consider the picture of Martin Boland in this article:

http://www.scotsman.com/news/obituaries/obituary-martin-boland-singer-who-was-heart-and-soul-of-edinburgh-s-folk-scene-1-4503044

He died about a week ago. He was quite a bit younger than he looks in that picture. Not exactly a picture of health.

And not many people thee days would want to be photographed hanging on to cigarette like that. There is another photo on Facebook which shoes him sucking furiously on an e-cig. Except when actually singing, it would probably have been hard to find a moment when Martin didn't have one or other in his mouth.

There are a good few other folkies in the queue. I get the impression that while overall tobacco consumption has gone down since e-cigs took over, the remaining smokers, in the folk scene at least, are trying to make up for the ones who've given up. They are much less at risk for lung cancer, but if anything the risks of heart and circulatory disease are greater.

There are also less heavy drinkers in the folk scene than there used to be, and very few people whose illegal drug use is out of control. E-cigs have taken over as the main drug of abuse. And they really are killing people.

Is this a peculiarly Scottish style of self-destruction or do people elsewhere see the same?