Three years ago, *Vitte noticed he could no longer play through his twice-weekly futsal games. He was sitting out after 20 minutes, completely out of breath. His endurance had really taken a toll.
Vitte had tried to stop smoking before. It lasted three days. Between work stress and managing family responsibilities, giving it up completely just wasn't realistic for him. He knew he needed something in between, a way to step down gradually. That's when he decided to switch. He'd heard about heated tobacco. It wasn't quitting entirely, but it seemed like a step in the right direction. He tried it.
Within a couple of months, he noticed the difference. He could play a full hour again without sitting out. The lingering cigarette smell on his clothes disappeared. And there were no more cigarette butts to deal with; everything went straight in his pocket until he found a bin.
"When you're hitting 40, staying active like that matters," Vitte said. "I want to keep playing for years."
Then last year, the government introduced stricter regulations and higher taxes on tobacco products. Overnight, what had been helping him became just as expensive as the cigarettes he was trying to leave behind.
Priced out of both regulated cigarettes and his alternative, Vitte did what made sense for his budget: he turned to the cheapest option available.
He started buying loose tobacco and rolling it himself, but it was messy and time-consuming. He wasn't very good at it. The rolls were uneven, they burned too fast, and half the time they fell apart before he could finish them.
Then he realized the corner shops near his house and office would do it for him. One shop was a two-minute walk from his apartment, another right next to his office.
"It's easier on the wallet," Vitte said. "And I don't have to deal with rolling them myself."
But the improvements he noticed when he switched to heated tobacco? They didn't last. His endurance got worse again. He was sitting out during games, and his clothes reeked of smoke. His wife, who had been relieved when the cigarette smell disappeared from their home, now found herself dealing with secondhand smoke again.
Vitte knows what he's smoking now is probably worse. "But heated tobacco was working for me," he said. "I was actually cutting down.” For him, with what he could afford, this was the only path left.
The goal of the new taxes and regulations was undoubtedly to protect public health. But the reality tells a different story. By treating every product exactly the same, policies have accidentally punished people like Vitte who were actively trying to make better choices, not just for themselves, but for the people around them. For a policy to actually work, it needs to be smarter. It needs to guide consumers toward regulated options, not trap them in an all-or-nothing cycle that ultimately just funds the underground market.
(*Name has been changed to protect privacy.)
