How Come Vernon Didn't Take The Drug Himself?
If he had, maybe he'd have turned into a martial arts tough guy and avoided the first beating and the follow up visit that happened when Eddie went out for breakfast.
shareVern has a long history of being a drug dealer. Any drug dealer knows far better to create the customer than to be the customer. Vern didn't seem to be the type to want to live at peak performance. He was rocking what would easily be a multi million dollar apartment in NYC.
Vern had Attwood addicted and at his mercy. Attwood's crew was trying to get to the drug - but why? Attwood obviously had access to a vast amount of money - couldn't he just buy more of the drug from Vern? Maybe the price to Attwood was $1,000,000 [whatever astronomical amount Atwood would refuse to pay]. Maybe Vern already knew his customers were dying and by denying Atwood the drug he was just speeding that process along to get Atwood out of his hair.
I seemed to me that Vern was probably setting up Eddie to get hooked to do the very same thing to him.
As for the martial arts thing - it would only have worked had Vern watched the same [or similar] nerd films on self-defense that Eddie had seen. Remember Vern's line: "It works better if you're already smart." He didn't strike me as that smart - or motivated. Remember Eddie's line before the dive in the cove? "If I wasn't moving forward I felt like I would explode." I think Vern knew that and it wouldn't be a feeling he would desire.