Cocaine and Coffee

It's funny how through closer examination the simple yet popular drink so many are dependent on is so similar to a drug outlawed for the dangerous process the brain undergoes when using it. I had a few points I found interesting that I wanted to share.

Contrary to popular belief, coffee or caffeine doesn't just inject energy into your bloodstream. Your nervous system produces amounts of adenosine, which, when it has reached a certain level, induces sleep. Now, those levels are monitored by receptors of the brain known as the A1 receptor, which sends signals to the body about what function to begin.

So, essentially, what this caffeine is doing is telling these receptors to hold off on the sleeping or resting processes that the brain attempts to set in. When cocaine is administered into the bloodstream, the dopamine forms to these same receptors, repeating the same process, heightening the opposite of what the receptors wish to do. The amount of intensity is obviously different to an extent, especially when the drug had been laced with a by-product, but still it has the same effects.

The real harm doesn't come until the process of preparing the cocaine is left up to the street dealer in which it then undergoes many unsanitary processes to save on money. As coffee progresses onward and people's addictions on it become worse, these same processes to prolong use for less money may come into place, making it no better than cocaine.

Who would've thought this beverage that many lives "depend" on wasn't far off from the dangerous street drug with a reputation of hospitalizing people over prolonged use?