I guess this is an art question, because for me it's a matter of character design/concept: so what do you do when you want to create a character who smokes cigarettes?
For me it's a complex issue, because smoking isn't as normalized as it was in the 60s, for instance. Young people these days certainly don't smoke as much as they used to; millenials have spent basically their whole lives inundated with anti-smoking PSAs, so ^^; It's weird now, and I'd assume that people (both in and outside of that fictional universe) would naturally ask questions.
But because I've spent so much time with shows from the 60's, for instance, the act of smoking has become part of my 'character behavior' repertoire. Like, the visual of someone casually pulling a cigarette out of a pack and lighting it in one smooth motion, then exhaling that first puff of smoke with a jaded sigh...it's really it's own thing; you can't replace that with a vaporizer, or even with a cigar (they take much more effort to light up, and just in general they don't look as casual).
Do you think I should hold myself back (I suppose it's a bit of a moral issue as well...) or just not care, and make all the smoking characters I want? Or is there a compromise I haven't thought of...? (besides lollipops...I play that card way too often as it is)