Splicetoday

Pop Culture
Jul 23, 2008, 12:40PM

Getting Your Fix

One writer is addicted to a substance that seems pretty likely to send him to an early grave. So why is he allowed to buy it on every street corner in urban America?

Coffee.jpg?ixlib=rails 2.1

Photo by nate steiner

I'm worried that I've become addicted to something ultimately harmful. Many more studies throughout the years have tied caffeine to increased blood pressure, and therefore an increased risk of heart attacks. We know for a fact that too much caffeine in the system leads to insomnia, and I don't think I need to mention what it does to your bladder.

So I have to wonder, where are the angry watchdog groups speaking out against this addictive and harmful substance? Where are the school-sponsored programs telling kids to stay away from coffee's bitter clutches? Although we might not have proven that coffee is a leading cause of colon cancer or some other disease, the advantages and disadvantages are still largely unknown. Shouldn't that be enough for the government?

Where is our consistency? Weed is completely illegal, despite the confusion about whether or not it's addictive or even harmful in small doses. Alcohol is closely monitored and moderated in our young-adult population, and cigarette smokers are treated like plague-carriers. Yet caffeine, a highly addictive and questionable substance, runs rampant?

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