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 think once upon a time alcohol was illegal somewhere? That’s what would happen. And I’d totally join a mafia
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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.
Tea
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.
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
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.
It would be yet another failed policy pushed by the kind of idiots who like to ban things. Comics/Guns/Porn/Drugs etc.
Mass civil disobedience.
