There are reusable vapes and reputable stores carry only those, but they are generally many times more expensive than disposable vapes, which are favored by smugglers (profit margins) and underage users (price point and potential seizing by parent/teacher/police).

Disposable vapes put young people in contact with career criminals and organized crime, who will be only too happy to oblige even if the customer has no money. The result is young people in debt to criminals, which has the exact same ramifications as getting in drug debt. Those young people can then be coerced to commit other crimes to cover their debts.

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dpc050505 a day ago | parent | next [-]

My reusable vape cost like 15$. It's basically the same components as a disposable vape, except I can refill a pod and switch the pod if I burn the wick.

	▲	cluckindan 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, lucky you, I guess? Here they are considered tobacco products and taxed as heavily as cigarettes. I think the cheapest models are around $50. That amount buys 10-200 disposable vapes from China, depending on how much you order at once and whether you care about the quality. Meanwhile, street resale prices are about $20 per vape. Smuggler’s heaven. The smugglers / bulk sellers do sell to school kids, who then resell to their friends and even online (telegram most probably). Seen so many teenagers walk over as a random car pulls up to exchange vapes for cash. Even seen a big time dealer arriving at a teenager’s house party in a new, expensive car with a trunk full of vapes, accompanied by muscle, talking about how many of each flavor the customer is going to buy. Maybe things are better on the other side of the big puddle, even if it means the same things are sold quasi-legally.

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HaZeust a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>"Disposable vapes put young people in contact with career criminals and organized crime, who will be only too happy to oblige even if the customer has no money. The result is young people in debt to criminals, which has the exact same ramifications as getting in drug debt. Those young people can then be coerced to commit other crimes to cover their debts."

This feels like pure fearmongering, and it's not even believable when most people here grew up around cigarettes, dip, or vapes in secondary school throughout the decades, and the dynamic was never anything like what you’re describing. Nobody was getting shaken down for cigarette or vape debts by “organized crime.” It was usually just some older kid or significant other, ex-student, or friend with a hookup who’d buy a pack or device and resell at a small markup. Sometimes it was even just a straight favor.

Trying to paint disposable vapes as a gateway to mafia debt collection just doesn’t square with lived experience in the US. Plenty of us experimented with nicotine products when we were underage - or know someone who did, and while that had its own health and legal issues, coercion into crime to cover “nicotine debts” simply wasn’t part of it lol

More people get into organized crime from their local Wal-Mart denying their job application as their only realistic ways to make money from labor, than ever do from nicotine products

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cluckindan 20 hours ago | parent [-]

Not everyone lives in the US.

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HaZeust 14 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	cluckindan 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		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.

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ThrowawayTestr a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Everything you said is wrong. Refillable vapes are around the same price as disposables and kids get them from gas station attendants that don't care. What's this about organized crime?

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cluckindan 20 hours ago | parent [-]

Not everyone lives in the US. In my country, disposable vapes are banned, so everyone selling or buying them is committing a crime.

	▲	protocolture 17 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Banning vapes is stupid. Its basically just handing a monopoly to organised crime.
	▲	arminiusreturns 17 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Even in the US, selling to kids is illegal in most states, so the same issue applies: kid can't buy vape at store, kid goes to adult who is likely to be criminal to get them to buy for them, now kid is vulnerable to exploitation.