what country contradicts my statements? Where in this world is getting spotted a Geek Bar equate to a severe debt that requires crime to pay off? Absurd premise.

Obviously it isn’t about a single vape. A bulk dealer wants to get rid of stock as quickly as possible, so they don’t expect a payment up front. Say it’s a box of 200 vapes. Then, someone steals it from the teenage vape dealer. Now, the teenager is out $4k in income but expected to pay $1k to $2k to the bulk dealer. That kind of debt to organized crime balloons fast; there are no controls on the interest. After a month of non-payment the amount owed may exceed $10k. At that point, the teenager can easily be coerced to commit additional crimes, including but not limited to hard drugs and murder.

I’d like to stress that this is not hyperbole, such things are documented to happen.

What does somebody buying hundreds of vapes to resell and then having them stolen have to do with individual customers, which was the original premise?

The conversation was about a single vape, and casual use, in the first place.

And yeah, I bet that's happened before, just like I bet a day-trader who ran on margin has lost all of his savings, house, cars, and wages through garnishment. That doesn't mean it's how 99% of situations, even in trading on margin, goes.

Even as it relates to underage dealers - even the stupid ones, a very few amount of teens buy in bulk - let alone do it only to fail on sales and get coerced into crime for payback. Not to downplay, the old "ATL" story like that is definitely real shit for illicit drug selling. But for vapes/alcohol/sanctioned (but legal and readily-available) substances? C'mon now. The market's there, but the incentives for coercion (due to the commodities being readily-available) are not.

I'd sooner assume that a story like that is a teen that's making a BS "blame the system" excuse for the fact that they actually bought vapes in bulk, squared it away, wanted to make more money than that hustle could offer, and voluntarily graduated to higher crime on their own. Fair play if they pull the excuse off, though - they've got us talking about it.