Pubdate: Wed, 15 Mar 2000
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2000 San Francisco Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/
Author: Jon Carroll

JUSTAFINE RECREATIONALDRINK

SO I WAS sitting here thinking about road rage you know road rage and how 
all these people are so frustrated they are shooting each other and 
stabbing and hurling dogs out of windows and doing bumpernudging and I was 
thinking about the offices I have been in lately the dot-com-type offices 
and how free sodas and coffee are de as it were rigueur and also Peet's I 
love Peet's and I was thinking and I emphasize here I have had only two 
cups maybe three no more than four that perhaps caffeine might be linked to 
some irrational explosions of anger and other kinds of manic behavior 
because frankly we have addicts all over the place and pushers like dot-com 
executives and Peet's did I mention Peet's and in what universe is caffeine 
not a drug?

That is my question.

My beloved readers are already fully aware of the idiocy of the current 
drug laws. My beloved readers understand that the distinctions made in such 
laws are based on economic and class issues, not medical ones. An illegal 
drug is one whose cartel got powerful too late -- period.

That leads us to various kinds of twilight drugs -- semi-legal prescription 
drugs, legal but restricted drugs like alcohol and nicotine, and entirely 
legal drugs like caffeine.

The evidence of my own body, plus sundry scientific studies and reams of 
anecdotes, suggests that caffeine is a powerful stimulant, a mood-altering 
drug pushed by large corporations everywhere in the belief that using the 
drug will make their employees more productive.

That is a questionable assumption, because caffeine has a powerful rebound 
effect, making the daily balancing act difficult (as anyone who's had a 
caffeine crash -- and I assume that's almost everyone reading my words -- 
can tell you).

Also, addicts who try to quit cold turkey, perhaps for health reasons -- 
caffeine's malign effect on hypertension has long been noted -- experience 
the vicious caffeine-withdrawal headache, a pain impervious to Advil even 
at non-recommended dosages.

Do I speak from experience? Oh, my yes.

I AM NOT advocating government regulation of caffeine; that way lies 
madness. But as long as we pretend that the law maps to pharmacological 
reality in any way, we are doomed to misunderstand the problem.

Maybe if every adult were able to take responsibility for his or her own 
drug use, maybe people who drink coffee and wine would not be quite so smug 
about their habits -- and people who use marijuana and cocaine would not be 
quite so in-prison-forever.

And, as it happens, I do think that caffeine is a factor in the stresses of 
modern life. If you take a human with a high-pressure job, a human who has 
to fight traffic for two hours every day, a human who works without a union 
or a health plan in a field where every geek out of college is a viable 
threat to job security -- I speak of the life around us here in city.bay 
area.bioregion -- and you pour 12 ounces of coffee per hour into said 
human, you'll get one angry human all day long.

The occasions of rage are everywhere -- talk radio and toll plazas, 
construction zones and national politics.

Do we need a drug that promotes inappropriate venting?

I wonder.

SOMETIMES WHEN I think of, say, a 12-step meeting, where people talk about 
being clean and sober while meanwhile pouring gallons of coffee into 
themselves; or press conferences called by Barry McCaffrey in which 
everyone has a nice Styrofoam cup of foul, inky java and gets really 
overexcited about the menaces that are stalking our children; or people 
downing joe because they are pulling all-nighters programming the guidance 
systems for the missiles in our nation's Stealth bombers and I know how 
many typing mistakes I make when I have one cup over my allotment as I 
struggle with my leetle problem and oh God was that the Chinese Embassy -- 
as an American, I worry.

We're drinking my friend to the end of a brief episode, so make it one for 
my baby and one more for  ---
MAP posted-by: Richard Lake