Does Coffee Contain Drugs? Persuasive Essay

It is pretty obvious these days that most people are addicted to cell phones. To get people more addicted companies try to put new things on cell phones that you could already do with some other device. Cell phones are able to use internet now, just like computers. People act like they cannot survive without a cell phone, if there was a quiz asking people what they would need to survive on an uninhabited island if they could only have a few resources I bet a cell phone would be number one on that list for most people. I also bet that coffee, chocolate or pop or maybe a combination of all three would be their number two desire. Because you see, coffee, chocolate and pop all contain the highly addictive stimulate named caffeine. My research and personal experiences have shown that addiction to caffeine is more dangerous than an addiction to one’s cell phone because caffeine can have an awful direct impact on your mind and body.

Everything manmade these days has ways to get people addicted to it! Food and drink addiction is big in America, a big part of that is what companies do to make people addicted to their food. We know commercials make people want to impulse buy, but there are things in many foods that could make people addicted to it like drugs! Chocolate was a luxury in Europe doing the Middle Ages, but now 2 ounces can be obtained from a vending machine for less than a dollar. Coffee started its upward trend in popularity after the Boston Tea Party in America and Coca Cola and Root Beer has been easily accessible for over a hundred years from convenience stores. The surge in popularity of these three items is no accident; it is all due to the clever lure of marketing and the addictive nature of caffeine found it these items.

Artificially flavored foods dull your taste buds to the point that healthy foods taste bland.
It’s like nacho flavored chips aren’t enough, now it’s fire flavored chips and extra fiery flavored chips! It’s like we will eventually have big calluses on our tongues from being bombed with all this flavor. Foods or drinks with caffeine in them do more than just make you addicted to the flavor, they have been consciously designed to make you addicted to consuming them frequently.

Both coffee and chocolate are known for their overpowering taste. It is customary that these two items are reserved toward the end of meals, so that the unique flavors from meat, vegetables and fruits won’t get lost or ignored because of the powerful taste and aroma from coffee and chocolate. There are too many flavors of pop to name. It is said that variety is the spice of life. Caffeine is the stimulate that makes us order pop each time we dine in or out and crave more and more options.

Coffee companies keep people buying their products by getting people addicted to their products, just like cigarette companies. Coffee is like liquid cigarettes, it is addictive, makes people have bad breath with a very distinct smell. Coffee is way worse than those artificial chips I was telling you about! Coffee has many different artificial flavors now to cover up how horrible it tastes alone without the flavors, and also the flavors added to the coffee is another thing that gets people addicted to it!

Have you ever read the back of a food container and all there is a bunch of stuff normal people don’t understand on it like triethanolamine, tetrasodium, hydrogenated monoglycerides, and stuff like that? Well all of those weird words listed on the back of food containers are artificial ingredients and there is no telling which ones may be chemicals designed to get us addicted to it! Caffeine is definitely an addictive chemical that is easy to get. Have you noticed it seems like coffee drinkers can’t go a day without drinking coffee. To drink coffee has become a habit in the life of many people. This is because coffee contains an addictive drug. Yep, it contains caffeine. Caffeine is an addictive psychoactive stimulant. (Also chocolate, tea, energy drinks and other beverages contain caffeine.) Around 90 percent of Americans consume caffeine every single day in one form or another. More than half of all American adults consume more than 300 milligrams (mg) of caffeine every day, making it America's most popular drug by far.
(According to Web MD)

Caffeine makes some people want to drink coffee as soon as they wake up because of the effects of blocking drowsiness which would be very convenient at work or some other task they shouldn’t fall to sleep at. Drinking a bit more caffeine than you need to stay awake could cause addiction, but chugging down a massive overload of caffeine could even lead to caffeine poisoning.

The FDA is planning to ban alcoholic drinks containing caffeine. News of college students being killed or dying after drinking such combinations of alcohol and caffeine have been publicized widely in the news. These drinks usually are like a cross between an energy drink and malt liquor. (According to Fox News)

A person would have to consume 5 to 10 grams of caffeine (or 80 cups of strong coffee, one after the other) to suffer an overdose. Some effects of caffeine poisoning include involuntary shaking, nausea, vomiting, irregular or rapid heart rate, panic attack and confusion. In extreme cases of caffeine poisoning a person could have a seizure. Caffeine blocks a chemical produced by the brain called adenosine from reaching the adenosine receptors. Adenosine and caffeine have very similar structures that the brain can’t tell apart. Adenosine is an important chemical for the nervous system. Adenosine is the chemical produced by the brain that makes the nervous system slow to a rate that lets the person get tired so the person would sleep or stop pushing the energy of your nervous system to do such tiring tasks.

When adenosine does not enter the receptors the nervous system could get over worked and the same effects of caffeine poisoning would occur. That is only one of the many functions adenosine has with the nervous system, and caffeine stopping the tiring function of adenosine explains why people get addicted to coffee. Adenosine also works with the nervous system to regulate cardiovascular function, respiratory function, and many other major vital functions, which explains the seizures and death of caffeine poisoning. Lack of adenosine could cause a wide variety of diseases. One of the most common side effects caffeine addicts experience is the big crash after the caffeine high, which is caused because of the body creating extra adenosine to make up for the lack of adenosine.

A party goer from Washington State University was killed by a colossal dose of caffeine. He consumed two spoonfuls of caffeine powder, equivalent to the caffeine in 70 cans of Red Bull. The caffeine product had a warning on it that said not to take more than one sixteenth of a spoonful of it.

If you use caffeine to try to stay awake at work you should make sure it doesn’t end up in an energy crash when you still are at your job. Unlike many other psychoactive substances, caffeine is currently legal.. After reading this you may change your mind about if caffeine should be legal. Even caffeine pills are used which is much more dangerous than drinking the amount of caffeine in coffee. Most caffeine pills contain 200-250 mg of caffeine. Most cups of coffee contain 90-150 mg of caffeine. Even one cup of decaffeinated coffee could contain 2-5 mg of caffeine. Monster Energy Drink contains 160 mg of caffeine, so drinking Monster Energy Drink for breakfast is only slightly worse than the average cup of coffee, but it still is not as bad as taking a caffeine pill for breakfast. Thinking about these comparisons you would probably realize how ridiculous the amounts of caffeine people consume are. A majority of soda beverages have 50 to 100 mg of caffeine. Decaffeinated sodas could contain 2-5 mg of caffeine. Having caffeinated soda for breakfast could be healthier than having caffeinated coffee for breakfast.

Large amounts of caffeine poses a specific health risk for women of all ages. Scientists have shown that the continual over-consumption of caffeine is a behavior that can trigger urinary tract infections (UTI) in women. Urinary tract infections and bladder infections are the second most common type of infections in the United States. Only Respiratory infections occur with greater frequency. Ladies with confirmed urinary tract infections are often instructed by their Doctors to drink only Cranberry juice and water for three to four days. Drinking cranberry juice increases the acid in the body and flushes out the bad bacteria responsible for the bladder infection. Clearly, a female truly addicted to caffeine would find it torture to be limited to drinking only cranberry juice and water for a number of days in order to secure a cure for her bladder infection. A woman can be stricken with the agony of bladder infections several times within a given year all episodes stemming from her daily consumption of huge amounts of pop and coffee. Ladies, please leave the caffeine alone, because you already spend way too much time in the bathroom.

Caffeine is a stimulant drug found in coffee, cola, chocolate and other legal products, and is also present in many pharmaceutical products (such as cold remedies). It is also one of the main substances used to 'cut' illicit drug powders like cocaine, heroin, speed and ecstasy. Yet our society acts like caffeine is not a drug.

The chemical name of caffeine is trimethylxanthine, and it can cause drug dependence in regular users, i.e. craving, tolerance and withdrawals. It affects a neurotransmitter in the pre-frontal cortex of the brain called adenosine, which regulates attention and working memory (which is why caffeine helps you concentrate). The lethal dose for the average person is 10 grams in a period of one or two hours - about 65 to 100 times the standard effective dose of 100-150 mg. However, more susceptible people (such as liver disease cases, children) could be killed by as little as 5 grams. One gram consumed in a short period (4 or 5 double-espressos) is enough to bring on symptoms of caffeine poisoning (headaches, palpitations, nausea, etc.) in most people.

Caffeine is a drug - more education is needed to make people aware of what constitutes safer versus risky caffeine consumption, so that potential harms to health can be minimized. The harm reduction approach to drug use is pragmatic and evidence-based, and applies as much to caffeine as it does to heroin and cocaine.

I have talked about the highly addictive and some times life threatening nature of the carefree use of caffeine in this essay and they all seem to be things that people don’t recognize as clear, real dangers. Foods and drinks laced with caffeine are so common in everyday life for most Americans; yet many of the dangers of caffeine remain hidden to them. If you are addicted to any of these things I talked about today in this essay you hopefully realize how bad these seemingly harmless things are. You should know what you are putting in your body, do not just think about what it will do for you at the moment, think about the future consequences because a lot of people out there don’t want to think past the moment and in the future they will regret it.