I wouldn't be surprised if caffeine were found to be harmful. Let's say that it's found to cause health problems, or to be responsible for specific instances of environmental degradation; would caffeine be attacked like tobacco?
Yeah, but alcohol had that whole prohibition thing, which lasted until it was pretty clear that there is no way that people are going to give up their right to the sauce. What's interesting to me is that there is no stigma to attached caffeine addiction, other than someone saying in a silly voice, "well, somebody needs their coffee!"
I don't think it would be attacked like tobacco. I do think there would be a push for regulations and standards related to what a (for lack of a better term) serving-size of caffeine is, and also better disclosure of how much caffeine is in what.
I used tobacco as an example because of its former ubiquity, but sure. I'm kind of surprised though, that the word "addiction" has such a negative stigma in most contexts, but as long as nothing negative is known about a substance that people habitually use, or extreme behaviors caused by a particular addiction, the public seems ok with addiction as a concept. However, when something negative is concretely known about an addiction, it's suddenly the end of the world and those people should be punished/pitied/shunned.
It's hard because if there's nothing concrete then people aren't going to lend you or whoever else credibility when viewing the behavior caused by the substance. It's also marketing, of course. It's harder to market energy drinks or vitamin water when you have whatever government agency saying that caffeine does x, y, and z and is now a regulated substance. I'm just glad that my sources of caffeine are mostly chocolate and ice cream, no coffee, energy drinks, tea (rarely), etc.
Go find this article. Granted, it's written by the president of Illy... but he is a biochemist. One of the statistics in there is that there have been over 100 studies on the effects of coffee and none of them have found anything negative. nvm, here you go: http://poplab.stanford.edu/pdfs/Illy-ComplexityCoffee-sciam02.pdfCoffee and caffeine have been the subject of extensive scientific study during the past quarter of a century, with 1,500 TO 2,000 PAPERS PUBLISHED EVERY YEAR on the topic. Despite this close scrutiny, few negative health effects have been definitively linked to the moderate consumption (TWO CUPS A DAY) of caffeinated coffee. In fact, recent work indicates that roasted coffee can be a good source of antioxidants.
Hang on, I'm not saying that I think it is harmful, just that I wouldn't be surprised if it were eventually found to be harmful. Thanks for the link anyway. Edit - A great line from that link:Sniffing roasted coffee aromas that have been fractionated by a gas chromatograph is an enlightening experience: one may recognize the aroma of roses, Darjeeling tea, chocolate, vanilla and violets, as well as truffles, soup, cheese, sweat and even what is called cat scent which, if diluted, smells like sauvignon blanc wine but in a concentrated sample is disgusting.
I've read that there are some compounds in coffee that have been found beneficial, but also that those compounds are not present in all preparations of coffee. Given its prominence around the world, I'm surprised that coffee research seems to be more limited than I'd imagined.
Coffee plantations DO have a negative environmental effect, though. Deforestation, loss of biodiversity, pesticide pollution. Further, the labor consequences aren't rosy either. Farmers sometimes have to sell for less than the cost of production and so they get trapped in a cycle of poverty, and that's just independent farmers. Workers oftentimes don't get paid minimum wage, are forced to work overtime and under deplorable conditions to which they have to bring their children to help reach quotas. And no, coffee will never be attacked the way tobacco is in the United States because it's effects aren't as glaring on the body. I mean, we already know that alcohol isn't exactly the best thing for us and yet the prospect of banning it seems almost ludicrous.
I've never had much of a problem with coffee. I was on an energy drink kick for a while, and man that stuff can really mess with you. Even if they didn't find caffeine to be harmful; I'm sure they could definitely find a link between some health problems and those energy cocktails people pound all day long.