Caffeine must be one of, if not the, most used drug. It is vital to the operation of more or less every industry.
Pharma companies would already have a caffeine equivalent that would be only slightly different in structure so it would circumvent the law. It would then be sold at exorbitant prices and people would still pay even with the side effect of sometimes you eat someone’s face. Of course they would then sell you something else to stop the side effects. You would also have the caffeine purists who would start their own speak easies and organized crime. People “abiding by the law” would start calling the purist, plants, since that is where caffeine is coming from, while the synthetic caffeine users would be called zombies for the obvious face eating reasons. This whole thing would cause even greater divides between already split countries leading to all out war. WWIII plants vs zombies.
This comment was amazing to come across and I look forward to the film adaptation.
Haha thanks. Wrote it drinking my morning cup of coffee.
Thanks, the punchline was worth it.
The economy would come to a screeching halt for a week or two when everyone is suffering from withdrawal.
Coffee would be served in underground cafeterias. The criminal gangs would immediately find a new very lucrative market in coffee smuggling.
That would require passing a law to ban both tea and coffee. And who do you think will bother to sit through a meeting without tea or coffee to even discuss such a bill?
The Mormons. Yes, the Mormons is the correct answer.
Everyone suddenly gets diagnosed with ADHD and gets prescribed stimulants.
I’d just go back to cocaine. What is the question here?
Have you ever had coca tea? It’s amazing - way better than caffeine. It’s more gentle, but stronger - like it gives you more energy, but you don’t get a hard crash, it’s less likely to make it hard to sleep, plus it has all sorts of health benefits - being able to adjust to high altitude for one
Cocaine probably shouldn’t be sold at the drug stores, but it would be amazing if we treated it like caffeine - you need a license to buy it, but you can get the leaves or products made for it
Plus we could make a path to legitimize cartels and stop getting people killed over the the war on drugs, which would be nice
I can’t imagine some shady guy in a street corner saying “I’ve got the stuff” and it’s just fucking coffee beans 💀
“Got some fire bean bro, hmu.”
“Yo what strain is it”
It’s a part of so much natural food it’d be impossible to ban
In quantities large enough to matter?
Crimes
Any government which makes caffeine illegal must be prepared to enforce that law with mass violence, or let it be ignored.
Given how unlikely your average cop is going to enforce a law they regularly brea… Oh, nevermind. Yeah it’d be a shit show. Demonstrations, arrests, black markets, the whole nine yards.
This eventual solution would likely bring to mind Bunny Colvin’s “paper bag” speech from the wire
Somewhere back in the beginning of time, this district had itself a civic dilemma of epic proportions. The city council had just passed a law that forbade alcoholic consumption in public areas; on the streets and on the corners. But the corner is, it was and it always will be the poor man’s lounge. It’s where a man wants to be on a hot summer’s night. It’s cheaper than a bar. Catch a nice breeze and watch the girls go on by. But the law is the law so what are the western cops gonna do? They arrest every dude for tipping back a High Life, there’d be no time for any other kind of police work. And if they look the other way, they open themselves up to all kinds of flaunting, all kinds of disrespect. Now, this is before my time but somewhere back in the 50’s or the 60’s, there was a moment of goddamn genius by some nameless smokehound who comes out the Cut-Rate one day and on his way to the corner he slips that just bought pint of elderberry into a paper bag. A great moment of civic compromise. That small wrinkled ass paper bag allowed the corner boys to have their drink in peace and gave us permission to go and do police work. The kind of police work that’s actually worth the effort, that’s actually worth taking a bullet for.
No one would ever willingly talk to me ever again.
…so pretty much no change.
ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ CAFFEINE or RIOT ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ
Well, a nap first and then RIOT
deleted by creator
I will become Caffeine version of Pablo Escobar 😉😂👊🏻
Michael Pollen wrote a audible book about how modern capitalism wouldn’t have been possible without the invention of the light bulb and the abundance of caffeinated beverages as it facilitated a 24 hour economy. Literally titled Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World.
So what would happen if the government illegalized caffeine? I’d say they’d be more likely to prohibit literally any other drug including alcohol and tobacco. But if I were to indulge this hypothetical scenario, I’d say other new stimulants without any legal status would be invented to replace caffeine.
You think Starbucks has been ruthless against the SBU? Turning them into a drug cartel would mean they go 1900s Pinkertons on them.
chocolate
soft drinks
and a few more things (and of course, all other products with chocolate in them. ice cream, candy bars etc)
would also be illegal.
