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Has the War on Coffee Begun?

Has the War on Coffee Begun?

An article in Esquire asserts that there are caffeine “addicts” and highlights the substance’s adverse physiological effects.

[Photo by WAJ}

Legal Insurrection has been reporting on the leftist global war on food—especially food people want to eat—and food production.

For example, we have been covering the war against Dutch farmers who are responsible for a large percentage of Europe’s food production. We have noted the move to replace meat, poultry, and fish protein with insects. We also shared that climate change activists are going after rice, which is a staple food for billions of people.

Recently, a story by John McDermott in Esquire led to concerns that the war on coffee has begun. The article delves into the experience of Petty Officer Second Class Marcus Biven to assert that there are caffeine “addicts.” The piece also highlights the substance’s many physiological effects.

It hits all the cherished progressive activist highlights, including an attack on American culture by an “expert” endeavoring to make a movement out of whole cloth.

So ubiquitous is caffeine in our culture that it doesn’t even register to people as a drug. Step out of the office for a midafternoon cigarette and people might look at you askance. Get caught doing a bump of coke in the office bathroom as a midday pick-me-up and it’s grounds for immediate termination. But slam a Monster or a quad-shot Americano at work and people will think you’re a go-getter.

That perception is increasingly being challenged by a small but growing choir of laypeople and experts making a concerted effort to raise awareness about the potential downsides of caffeine dependence. “Caffeine is wildly misunderstood, especially with primarily anxiety-prone people,” says Mark Johnson, a thirty-four-year-old video producer in Greenville, South Carolina.

It also includes a manipulation of definitions to shoehorn caffeine into an addiction-inducing substance.

Caffeine might not meet the strict medical definition of addictive, but it does meet more general criteria, according to self-professed caffeine addicts: 1) Addicts continue using caffeine despite its negative effect on their lives, and 2) they want to quit but they have trouble doing so. “It’s one of the only things it’s acceptable to be addicted to,” Johnson says.

Perhaps no one has done more to bring attention to the physical and psychological effects of caffeine than Michael Pollan, arguably the most respected food-science writer in the world—ironic given that Pollan both openly identifies as an addict and ardently defends the positive effects of caffeine. “Yeah, I’m addicted to caffeine,” he admits to me. “So what?”

I am also a qualified caffeine expert . . . as it is one of the substances I use in my lectures on toxicology. If used improperly, all chemical substances have the potential to be harmful or fatal. Drinking 30-40 classes of water in quick succession can lead to a deadly case of water poisoning, for example.

In pure form, caffeine is a toxic solid. Coffee has about 95 mg of caffeine per cup, which is well below the 3000 grams required to be potentially lethal to humans.

Some have indicated that after a dose of around 1 g, toxic symptoms begin to manifest, a dose of 2 g requires hospitalization, while higher doses (e.g., typically 5 g or more) could be lethal. However, some have determined that as little as 3 g could be lethal under certain circumstances.

The trouble comes when caffeine pills are used for an energy boost or if too many caffeine-enhanced energy drinks are consumed in a short period of time. These acts make the toxic levels more readily achievable, especially among younger individuals.

A 16-year-old collapsed at his South Carolina high school after consuming too much caffeine in a short period of time.  He was later pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.  Davis Allen Cripe was a student at Anderson, South Carolina’s Spring Hill High School.  Sean Cripe, the boy’s father, and Gary Watts, the Richland County coroner held a news conference Monday, issuing a warning about the danger of young people drinking too much caffeine, especially the caffeine found in energy drinks.

They said Davis had no health problems and didn’t consume alcohol or drugs.  The problem is that in a 2-hour period he consumed:

  • a large Diet Mountain Dew
  • a McDonald’s cafe latte
  • an energy drink

Caffeine is like every other consumable substance: It has benefits, but the adverse effects must be made known. Once fully informed, people can take ownership for their own limits.

Coffee itself is rich in antioxidants, has vitamin B complexes, enhances the metabolism, and has some additional health protections as well.

Alzheimer’s disease is the world’s most common neurodegenerative disease and a leading cause of dementia.

Studies have shown that coffee drinkers have up to a 65% lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

Parkinson’s is the second most common neurodegenerative disease and is caused by the death of dopamine-generating neurons in the brain.

Coffee drinkers have a 32–60% lower risk of Parkinson’s disease. The more coffee people drink, the lower the risk.

But why has this article been published now? Perhaps to scope out a future target for climate crisis activism, in their apparent quest to extinguish all joy from the planet.

Coffee is one of the world’s most popular beverages and 80% of it is produced by 25 million smallholders. Around 125 million people worldwide depend on coffee for their livelihoods.

In conclusion: I would not be the same person without coffee, so this battle is one of the important ones for me personally.

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Comments

All the Left wants is to be stoned. Everything is bad except Mary Jane. Their happiness is found in taking away your happiness.

    CommoChief in reply to alaskabob. | May 6, 2023 at 1:05 pm

    True. The leftists would be wise to remain coherent long enough to negotiate what form of ‘stoned’ they agree to though.

ThePrimordialOrderedPair | May 6, 2023 at 12:09 pm


Amy Curtis
@RantyAmyCurtis
·
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They will suck every single source of joy out of your life.

That is their whole intention. Western leftism is self-hating nihilism that is based on the burning envy and hate of emotionally damaged personalities who espouse a worldview of finite meaninglessness. Western Leftists cannot stand anyone who seems happy or content or convinced of some ultimate meaning to existence.

Dinking a triple espresso of King Harv’s Ethiopia while reading this. For double Caffeine hit, use Vietnamese Robusta beans such as Nguyen “True Grit”.

They’ll have to pry my coffee cup out of my cold, dead hands.

    CommoChief in reply to txvet2. | May 6, 2023 at 1:08 pm

    They are broadening the culture war fight in going after something which even single people without children are willing to fight back against.

    alaskabob in reply to txvet2. | May 6, 2023 at 1:49 pm

    I guess “Fair Trade” and “ethical sourcing approach” weren’t enough.

So Just to be clear , caffeine is dangerous but puberty blockers are safe and reversible ?

The left nd the swamp need perpetual war, lest amyone see their hands in the till. (See Al Sharpton)

The Gentle Grizzly | May 6, 2023 at 2:04 pm

Predictions:

California will mandate window decals for all coffee shops and C- stores warning of the dangers of coffee.

“Enlightened” school districts that have those invasive questions about a child’s home will add, “Does anyone in your home drink coffee?” “How many brewing devices are in your home?’ “If so, what are their capacities?”

The principal of the school cons a distraught parent into denouncing coffee and caffeine.

Five billion (for the spectrum commenters here .. I exaggerate) people drink coffee, tea and various caffeine products daily – and one of those five billion die after drinking a mountain dew, a latte and a red bull.

And eager dirt-bag journalists lap it up like a horde of rabid kittens at a milk bowl.

And then I unwittingly read about it because American Red Guardist-Marxists use tragedies such as this to maximize their power to shakedown businesses, co-ops and smallholder farmers.

henrybowman | May 6, 2023 at 2:11 pm

It is true — there are caffeine addicts.
And if progressive Karens are looking to prematurely trigger the final (shooting) phase of our culture war, these are the exactly people to oppress next.

Nothing to worry about. If it’s as successful as the war on drugs, it will be easier to get and cheaper.

They need a crisis to put through their demands on coffee. So I expect they’ll try to link coffee to global warming somehow.

I predict there will soon be “studies” showing that growing coffee, processing it, and shipping it all add an alarming amount of CO2 or some other terrible pollutant to the atmosphere.

When I was doing cardiovascular research at the Cleveland Clinic in the early 80’s, we would drink until we experienced palpitations, and then have two more cups before stopping. 😉 I remember a risk statistician saying that drinking a lot of coffee carries a 1:2500 chance of pancreatic cancer, whereas not drinking coffee has a 1:7 risk of unemployment, and he chose accordingly.

At one time these cultists would be dismissed as cranks, now they are increasingly violent as fellow cultists like Garland and Wray are in charge of things.

E Howard Hunt | May 6, 2023 at 4:02 pm

No coffee? How the hell am I supposed to sober up so I can get to work?

Here’s another one:

On “White Fragility”
At a time of catastrophe and national despair, when conservative nationalism is on the rise and violent confrontation on the streets is becoming commonplace, it’s extremely suspicious that the books politicians, the press, university administrators, and corporate consultants alike are asking us to read are urging us to put race even more at the center of our identities, and fetishize the unbridgeable nature of our differences.

One one side there is support for diversity [dogma] (i.e. color blocs, color quotas, affirmative discrimination) as a social justice good.

On the other side “conservative nationalism is on the rise and violent confrontation”.

All roads lead to Weimar. See “Susan Benesch” of “Dangerous Speech Project” above, but not their speech… round and around. That said, all’s fair in lust and abortion.

On one hand, on the other hand, always and forever.

MoeHowardwasright | May 6, 2023 at 4:55 pm

I’m having trouble writing this as my caffeinated fingers are shaking in rage! Or are they shaking because of the high level of caffeine that courses through my veins. /s Remeber the 90’s view was coffee was bad for you. Then 15 years later was coffee was beneficial for you. LOL I have been drinking coffee since I was 15. Including 4 years of Marine Corps coffee. Stern stuff!! I wish these types would just STFU!!

Never fear. Starbucks will come to the rescue and buy all the politicians needed to prevent this.

    AF_Chief_Master_Sgt in reply to jb4. | May 6, 2023 at 8:22 pm

    It will be that day when I start drinking SB coffee as a tribute, but not before.

Michael Gilson | May 7, 2023 at 12:29 am

Tactically, shouldn’t they wait to try to ban our coffee until after they succeed in banning our guns? I don’t think they will like the results for them if they take away our coffee while we still have guns.

“A growing contingent of people says caffeine is just as potentially addictive and dangerous as other psychoactive chemicals, and that it’s time we start thinking about and regulating it as such.”

A, “regulating,” the mating call of the liberal. The only time they get a stiffy is when they’re telling someone else how to live their life and banning anything that provides enjoyment. Everything in the world should be controlled, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered.

There’s only one proper response to these people… and it’s not to debate them. It’s to tell them to fuck off.

“Perhaps to scope out a future target for climate crisis activism, in their apparent quest to extinguish all joy from the planet.”

No, not joy. Just the people who feel that way. They have openly stated their goal to reduce human population to no more than 500 million.

This used to be called “genocide”. Time to respond to it accordingly.

Strelnikov | May 7, 2023 at 3:40 pm

Thoughts:

1) Use cauliflower as a substitute for potatoes, rice, coffee and any joy in your life. You have no friends or life now. Only cauliflower.

and

2) Frye did it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqd-_fHdTyA

So ubiquitous is Marxism in our culture that it doesn’t even register to people as a drug.

This means war!!

A good read: Is coffee good for you? Health benefits, disadvantages, and more (https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/270202; there are plenty of others)

Not only the benefits listed in the article, but protection from liver disease, diabetes, antioxidants, fights inflammation, curbs depression, gout etc.

My doctor asked me if I drink coffee, and I said yes, about 3 cups a day (okay, I lied), and he said to increase it for the health benefits. Of course, i drink a lot more, and in concentrations that leave some individuals (like my former grad school mentor) twitching all night! It doesn’t keep me awake at all, oddly enough.

It is my drug of choice!! All hail caffeine!!