Criminalize it

I read in the local press recently that somebody conducted a study on the long term physical effects of heavy marijuana use.  It dealt with many health issues, but focused on the brain.  My guess is that, having discovered there to be no toxicity limit (there is no way to overdose on marijuana), and learned that it would be a stretch to call it addictive, they decided to see if there wasn't something spicy in the brain functioning of heavy, long-term smokers.  They concluded there wasn't really any way to tell what their results meant, while somehow still making pot sound bad (which is what I'm sure they knew they had been paid to do).  Their conclusion amounted to a stern and sober warning that we still don't know that it doesn't cause brain damage.

I've got a dirty little secret to tell.  I know of a drug which comes from an entirely unregulated industry, raw, more addictive than alcohol, as immediate and as pronounced in effect as marijuana, also with undetermined but potentially serious physical effects, and used legally by millions of Americans (including children) daily.  Of course, I'm talking about coffee.

Don't laugh.  The speed buzz one gets from coffee is similar in intensity to a marijuana buzz; one can do a little coffee for a little buzz, or many cups a day to go up and stay up.  It's an immediate and pleasant effect, but if you try to stop you'll get headaches - besides, why stop?  The health issues are unclear but certainly unhealthy in excess - potentially fatal, something which can't be said about pot.

Potentially fatal, I said.  Think about the children.  We have to move on this before it's too late.  We can start a big media campaign to warn the public that coffee is a silent killer, and a direct cause of the steady increase in mental illness.  We can get 'restrictions' put on at first, just a few, just good common sense.  Once we've got a solid lobby of folks saying it only makes sense to be cautious, we make the big move by agreeing with them and pushing for coffee industry regulation.  In the ensuing dust storm caused by a flustered and blustering Starbucks, we publish a mass of writings saying that coffee has been discovered to be the cause of all those anxiety attacks, reason goes straight out the window, and we have a rush to ban the public consumption of coffee.

Once they figure out that the writings were mere speculation and presented nothing like a good causal argument or even any science, it will be too late.  The trade will have gone underground, the mafia or the terrorists or whomever else the bad guys are today will be making money on all those coffee addictions, and any relaxation of the rules would look like a capitulation by law enforcement.

And think of the consequences!  We could get zealous and put yuppies in jail left and right, taking away the SUVs that were obviously bought with dirty money.  We could tell our kids that the reason we're against a harmless substance is because it's a gateway drug.  You get it from a dealer, and who knows what other drugs that dealer has?  And the best thing is that our arguments would be unassailable, since we can always win with the trump card:

"It's against the law"
 

March 14, 2002