If Coffee was a controlled substance, would you be a criminal?

[mopaul]

of the two things that grow from the earth, coffee and marijuana, i'm hooked on both. one is legal, one ain't. everytime i enjoy a good smoke, i'm being a criminal. my choice.

what if good ol' coffee were suddenly illegal, or real hard to get?

would you go through addiction withdrawals and buy it on the black market? would you be a criminal coffee addict? i think i might.

this country could not survive a shortage of coffee, it's our number one addiction besides oil. we grow little of our own, and we rely on foreign sources of coffee to fuel ourselves every morning. notice coffee prices are going up?

more later, i need another cup

[neverborn]

1. Ugh. YES.

[Maestro]

2. I would definitely be a repeat offender

:hangover:

[mopaul]

3. You're boofin' coffee right now ain't ya? i thought so

mee too

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. If this country weren't so dependant on the productivity of its workers,

coffee probably wouldn't be in much high demand. Sugar & milk prices would also be affected.

And productivity is one reason that coffee is legal, and marijuana is not.

[Political_Junkie]

5. yep

no doubt.

[LynneSin]

6. Ban Coffee - see if I care

now if they go after my tea or sugarfree Red Bull

:scared:

[indigobusiness]

18. Red Bull sugarfree is sweetened with what?

Aspertame will kill you dead, but you knew that, right?

I'm sure they use something else. I've never seen the sugarfree
version. Gave up Red Bull when it became popular and outrageously expensive. Good stuff, though.

[Awsi Dooger]

7. Completely innocent, never had a sip

Somehow, a hot murky liquid never appealed to me. Put a tall glass of pulp-laden orange juice side-by-side and how is that even a choice, other than pure masochism?

The two most annoying questions, when I have to compose myself and stifle the bubbling sarcasm:

* at a fast food restaurant, "do you want cheese on that?"

* after a meal, especially a buffet, "are you ready for some coffee?"

[mopaul]

11. sigh, you'll never know the gutwrenching nausea & hypertension

and awful bitter taste that makes you wanna spit it out. nothing can hide that awful flavor, not bovine excretions, not glucose, not powdered milk substitutes, nor any known trick. i envy you

[ze_dscherman]

8. Coffee was prohibited in many countries, many times

Including my own region in Germany in the 18th century, IIRC.

Right now I'm on caffeine withdrawal - I felt I was drinking way too much of it, and it was doing no good to me and my blood pressure.

Five days of headache and a somehow "fuzzy head" so far, but I hope I'll be over it this weekend. Already, I'm feeling much calmer, but still have to learn how to get over the tired patches of my working day.

[Ilsa]

9. I take it in moderation (1-2 cups). Too much gives me hot flashes! n/t

[Spinzonner]

10. Never touched the stuff in my life

Now chocolate, that's a different matter.

[ET Awful]

12. I'd be a dealer :) n/t

[Kukesa]

16. And I'd buy from you,

on a dark street, late at night. Money would be no object -- I'd sell my car, my home, just to have my coffee. I can't imagine life without it.

[terrya]

13. I sure would be. I'd break any law for coffee.

[1monster]

14. No. But if CHOCOLATE were suddenly illegal, I would have a serious

problem! I'd have to move to Amsterdam or something drastic like that.

[indigobusiness]

15. I would've been executed long ago.

Been grinding beans since long, long before it was fashionable.

[BigMcLargehuge]

17. you ever see Scarface

it would be like that... only twitchier.

[underpants]

19. Actually US forces in Germany have it on their ration card

or at least we did when I was over there (90-93). Liquor (save for Southern Comfort), tobacco, and Coffee- you could only buy so much each year.

[jmowreader]

24. We were rationed in Korea too but for different reasons

In Korea, coffee was one of the most popular black-market items. Same with toiletries ($15/month for men, $25/month for women--there's a war story here but I won't tell it now), cigarettes (70 packs per month, but if you were a "heavy smoker" you could get an exception to policy with no effort at all--at the turtle farm the Ration Control officer made you fill out this form if you smoked more than two packs a day, and you could get as many as you needed), booze (eight cases of non-Korean beer, eight bottles of spirits, no ration on wine; they also sold Korean beer in the Class VI store and there was a huge sign over it "no ration on this item"), sugar (five pounds a month if you weren't command-sponsored) and a few other items I don't remember right now. Baby goods were also rationed but to get a B on your ration control plate, you had to have a baby in the command with you. The Korean government put outrageous duties on all of those items--a bottle of Jack Daniel's cost something like three times what it did in the US--so the impetus to blackmarket was there.

In Europe, it's all logistics; very little blackmarketing occurs there. Go to an international-food grocer and buy a pound of Melitta coffee, which is a German brand, and you will see why--German coffee is so much better than American coffee, no one wants the American stuff. Same deal with liquor; the only really all-American liquors are bourbon and Tennessee whiskey, and you can get those at any German grocery store; who in hell is going to drink Smirnoff when Polish and Russian vodkas are as cheap? American cigarettes were a problem--there is apparently a difference in taste between American smokes and German smokes, and the price of German cigarettes is fairly high so there is motivation. But even with motivation, there's not much blackmarketing there. The Pacific Stars and Stripes runs a weekly column listing all the blackmarketers that went to jail this week; a similar column is not in the European edition.

[underpants]

25. Intersting-yes the smokes are different

Some have 19 in a pack and some 21. I never figured that out. Marlboros bought "on the economy" did taste different.

We had an E7 in our mortar platoon who used up his booze ration in about 2 or three months and made young privates who didn't drink or didn't drink much go buy him a fifth of Vodka every night, every night.

[jmowreader]

34. That's one advantage to the US Forces Korea ration system

It is impossible to use up your annual ration of anything in a couple of months because they don't give you the whole ration at one time like USAREUR does.

There's a war story about fundie commanders and liquor rations that I may tell sometime later, but not now.

One guy told me that being able to use your ration at whatever time of year you wanted was a good thing, because if you wanted to hold a party and you needed a lot of booze, you'd need to expend a lot of your liquor ration to do it. As the unit fund officer, I quickly corrected this young troop: If you want to hold a party, and you can guarantee that anyone in the unit who wants to get in can, all you need do is find me and have me set up an appointment with the unit fund office at Berlin Command headquarters on Clay Compound. We would go there, you'd pay the command unit fund officer for however much booze you wanted (at wholesale prices, now, not Class VI retail, which in itself saved you about 35 percent), she'd issue you a form and we'd go to the G-4 warehouses. There you drew what you paid for...no ration card required! I had a big list of everything you could possibly want, available for purchase by the mess halls, the club system and all the unit fund officers. All at great prices and no ration card required, although I think they would have looked at me funny if I'd have walked in and ordered a case of Marlboros. I could get five different brands of cigars, though; IIRC it was Macanudo, Punch, H. Uppmann, Arturo Fuente and one brand I don't recall. I know it wasn't Cohiba and none of them were Cuban. We had a "traditional" dining-in for my company once, and we drew cigars for it. (At the traditional dining-in, when the smoking lamp is lit you may only smoke cigars; smoking a cigarette is good for a trip to the grog bowl.) We paid $65 a box for Macanudo lonsdales, which are a good size for a dining-in. Later I found out those sticks were worth about $100 a box retail.

[Kellanved]

36. interesting- but I have to disagree on the blackmarketing

Cigarette smuggling is actually a big problem, many fear that with the Eastern Border gone it will get worse (until the enlargement all trucks got X-Rayed).
Anyway, there are illegal cigarette sellers at every corner in Berlin; the annual damage is estimated to be several Billion Euros. The industry has agreed to pay a few hundred millions re-compensation, but still...

A column listing names would be illegal - Tobacco companies caught get named though.

[DS1]

20. I'd be a walking felony

[MissMillie]

21. I may have 1 or 2 cups per week

But I suppose that would be illegal too if coffee were a controlled substance. I could quite easily give up morning coffee. The coffee I would miss Most would be the "after dinner" cup that comes after a meal you've had in a nice restaurant.

[livetohike]

22. I would have been in prison in my teens

If coffee became illegal here, then I would have to move to a coffee growing country.

Hmmm, I spent a beautiful day on a coffee plantation in Queensland years ago. Yes, that would be my choice.

Now it's time for my third cup of coffee this morning. When I say "cup", I mean a 12 oz mug.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

23. Aren't there some religion denominations that DO consider caffeine a drug?

I faintly recall Mormons and/or Jeovah's Witnesses banning coffe, Coca-cola etc.

[BigMcLargehuge]

26. 7th Day Adventists too

they drink... YUCK... Postum instead.

Postum tastes almost exactly like a mixture of weak ovaltine and wallpaper paste

[jmowreader]

35. Take a guess who owned the Coca-Cola Company

The Jehovah's Witnesses still ban stimulants in all forms; Jehovah is supposed to be all the stimulation you need.

For at least a while--they still might, but I doubt it--the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints owned the Coca-Cola Company. When they bought it, an edict came down from Salt Lake City that a number of prominent Mormon health professionals and bishops had conducted an enclave that determined caffeinated beverages, if taken in moderation, would not defile the holy temple that is the human body.

Now Mormons can drink cokes, just not gallons and gallons of them in one sitting. Coffee is okay too.

Rum in the coca-cola, however, still defiles the holy temple.

[playahata1]

38. Not only Mormons and JWs, but also Rastafarians.

I know that a lot of people who know about Rastafarianism, though, might find it odd that Rastafari would prohibit coffee yet sing the praises of GANJA (marijuana). It all depends on where a person stands on the marijuana issue.

[MallRat]

27. Are we talkng ALL caffeinated beverages, or just coffee?

I'd have no problem switching to tea or cola.

Now, if they outlawed ALL caffeinated beverages, that might just be enough to elicit genuine violence from me.

:mad:

-MR

[bif]

28. I'd be perpetually in and out of rehab

n/t

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. I would be on the lookout for shifty-eyed characters on

street corners whispering to me, "Hey, wanna score some Sumatra Mandheling or Mexican Altura Pluma?"

[woofless]

30. Totally Jonesin' here.

We go through a can of Costco 100% Colombian (3 whole pounds) in about ten days. We also buy a fat oz. when we can so the leap to illegal coffee is not a prob. I figure if I don't believe they have the right to regulate my use of naturally occurring substances, I can ignore them. Carefully of course. Screw 'em.

[cmf]

31. I broke my coffee addiction a couple years ago

Before that I needed at least two cups a day. But the caffeine was causing health issues, so I gave it up. Switched to tea in the morning for a while, now I just drink water.

[ChickMagic]

32. Nah

Just the once in a blue moon social cup o' joe.

[flamingyouth]

33. I actually don't drink coffee

Especially bizarre because I live in Seattle, and I think I might be violating some kind of municipal code, so please don't say anything. ;)

[playahata1]

37. Years ago, I read in this book about drugs/substance abuse

that coffee was illegal in Spain at one point in time. The penalty for possession of A SINGLE COFFEE BEAN was DEATH.

[Champ]

39. I'm talking if that was serious

Probaly not, I don't think the trouble would be worth it for some coffee. But maybe I'll deal. :)