The Deadly Peril of Coffee (Sarcasm Warning)

Andrew Platt writes (of me) : ' One of his (my) chief objections is that illegal drugs are *immoral* because they break the link between effort and reward. An astute newspaper reporter who interviewed him pointed out that coffee also breaks that link. Clearing a fuzzy head in the morning can be achieved by means of a run or brisk walk in the fresh air, or alternatively by sitting on one’s backside and drinking a couple of espressos. By his logic, therefore, coffee must also be immoral.'

I don't see what 'logic' supports this claim. I drink coffee because I like the smell and taste of it, and limit my drinking of it so as to avoid the unpleasant side effects which come with excessive consumption (I do the same with wine). As it happens, I begin most days with a fair amount of moderate exercise, and wouldn't for a moment imagine that coffee drinking was a substitute for this.

 

Coffee, even in excess,  does not provide the unearned chemical exaltation which some drugs provide, or anything remotely like it. Nor does it in any way alter consciousness or perception. If it did either, I wouldn't touch it, and nor would most people.  It is not a psychotropic,  and is simply not comparable with them (at least, it isn't when one is dealing with a reasonable person rather than with a propagandist,or an apologist for drugs). It is self-evidently risible, which is why I haven't until now bothered to respond to the claim.

 

Self-indulgence, like misery, loves company and wants to feel that its transgressions are normal and that everyone else is wallowing in the same swamp. The 'what about alcohol?' claim has a similar origin. But at least it involves a powerful and damaging drug whose use ought to be limited by law, and which we would certainly ban if it were newly-introduced. Coffee is not in the same category. This is obvious to any thinking person, and even more obvious when the claim is examined with any care.

 

The suggestion that coffee is the equivalent of MDMA, cannabis, cocaine, heroin or LSD is insupportable, feeble and rather contemptible, as its purpose is to normalise horribly dangerous substances.