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.
I did a spit take when I read this
(of my coffee)
🔥✍🔥
Well, pack it in folks, Lemmy has peaked. It’s not getting better than this from here on.
Thanks, the punchline was worth it.
I think once upon a time alcohol was illegal somewhere? That’s what would happen. And I’d totally join a mafia
This is the real answer. When they illegalized a drug that was already widespread and in common use, basically everyone simply became a criminal. There’s no reason to think people’s natures will have changed enough to suddenly want to be law-abiding citizens, easpecially when they’re on ceffeine withdrawl.
I don’t think it would be as widespread though, since you need specific caffeine producing plants in order to get it, as opposed to alcohol which can be made from just about anything. The growth and distribution would probably be more like Marijuana, if 90% of the country were addicted to it (so insanely expensive and a whole lot of also caffeine-dependent cops being paid off).
It is definitely not the right answer.
I can make wine, to prevent me from making wine you’d have to make literally every fruit illegal, and even then there are millions of wild apple trees in my country that you’d have to cut down. It’s impossible to prevent people from making alcohol.
In contrast to that, you can’t grow anything that produces caffeine in my country. I’d have to import it, and checking mail in customs is a hell of a lot easier than checking the vast areas of empty forest to see if I’m illegally growing apples.
Pretty much the same as with every illegal product. It would move to black market because as long as there is demand there will always be a supply.
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?
And who do you think will bother to sit through a meeting without tea or coffee to even discuss such a bill?
Are you suggesting that politicians follow the laws they put in place?
I’m pretty sure the last time the govt tried to mess with our tea we started a war and made a new govt, so uh, that.
The Mormons. Yes, the Mormons is the correct answer.
I’d just go back to cocaine. What is the question here?
I can’t imagine some shady guy in a street corner saying “I’ve got the stuff” and it’s just fucking coffee beans 💀
Right?! That’s almost as crazy as some shady guy selling a plant.
I agree lol.
There’d be a lot more bloodshed on Monday mornings
The same thing that happened when they made shipping nicotine through the mail illegal.
I stock up on a shitload of pure caffeine/nicotine, and store it.
Either that, or I start extracting it from other commonly available foods… (caffeine is present in quite a few foods naturally. )
Or, finally… there would then just become a black market for caffeine.
The same stuff which happened during the prohibition period many years ago.
Fuck yeah a coffee speak easy sounds amazing. Like prohibition or not I would totes go to a coffee speakeasy
People would suddenly realize it’s better to go to bed earlier and sleep longer than hitting snooze 5 times and needing that energy boost every morning. Who am I kidding, people would revolt.
The governments probably stop functioning. Apocalypse ensues.
I will become Caffeine version of Pablo Escobar 😉😂👊🏻
Including the hippos?
Wow
Crimes
Loads of people will go through withdrawal symptoms.
Caffeine doesn’t require a laboratory or manufacturing operations. It can come from plants. What would happen is people start growing and developing an underground caffeine distribution network and underground caffeine import network from countries that aren’t dumb.
Weed users are less than 20% of the US population and that was a shadow industry bigger than most legal industries. Compare to 60% drink coffee every day, then there’s tea drinkers and of other caffeinated beverages; people would riot and/or go underground to get their caffeine.
cocaine sales would go up. People would try microdosing. Some of those people would end up regular dosing.
There would be a black market, not only for coffee and tea, but also for caffeine powder, which people would sprinkle into anything.
Peoples’ overall caffeine consumption would go down. That girl from my high school who got the shakes every afternoon would probably have been better off.
