5 ms·

You remember the topic and the name of the PI but still can’t find this study? I am relatively certain that’s because it does not exist. The idea that caffeine

by dpark 5y ago

You remember the topic and the name of the PI but still can’t find this study? I am relatively certain that’s because it does not exist. The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I can totally believe that if you give someone who’s never done drugs a high dose of caffeine and tell them it’s cocaine, they might believe you. But that’s not at all the same as the two actually being indistinguishable. “I feel like my heart’s going to explode and I can’t stop moving!” “That’s the cocaine.” “Not what I would have expected, but okay!”

inter_netuser 5y ago
I'm not sure if it was Volkow, or even if she was a PI. She does a lot of research at the NIH on drugs of abuse, but I'm not sure it's her paper. I am quite certain the study exists, because I recall her talking about the findings, and then reading the abstract.
- dpark 5y ago
  I have high confidence that you will never find this study, and that it doesn’t exist. I’m not accusing you of malice, but I think you must be misremembering something. But I’d love to be wrong. That would be a very interesting result.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    It was in a context of a lecture, it could be that she referenced multiple papers. but, like it or not, caffeine is a psychostimulant, and psychostimulant substitution is fairly well established, idk whats the controversy. if you want to find it, you might have to crawl thru every reference of volkow's 100+ papers on cocaine.
    - prepend 5y ago
      > if you want to find it, you might have to crawl thru every reference of volkow's 100+ papers on cocaine. If you want to use the reference, I suggest you find it and validate it exists before trying to make some claim. I also don’t think anything malicious but think it’s more likely that you misunderstand something than the paper exists and you can’t find it. As a reader trying to determine if your claim is bullshit it’s not worth the risk that you’re wrong for me to exhaustively review all 100+ papers to make sure it doesn’t exist. As the saying goes, “If you hear hoofbeats outside your door, it’s probably a horse not a zebra.”
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    I wasn't able to find a specific research study yet but here's this >Intravenous caffeine also resembles cocaine, she points out. https://archive.fo/bLX94 https://archive.fo/bLX94
    - dpark 5y ago
      Thanks. I wonder how much it resembles cocaine, and at what dosage? This is at least a bit of support regardless.
sockpuppet69 5y ago
xyzzy123 5y ago
OK, I don't have any data either but I'd be pretty surprised if there were a lot of murders by people trying to acquire cocaine. I mean, it could be true? If you were seriously addicted but not high at the time, I expect you might feel agitated, but also kind of sorry for yourself / miserable and not so much in a murdering frame of mind. Large amounts of money (which large amounts of cocaine can be exchanged for), on the other hand...
- dpark 5y ago
  Honestly I don’t know how prevalent murdering for drug money is at all. My belief that this happens with some regularity for cocaine is based on suspect info now that I think about it. The DARE program told me that definitely 100% of illegal drug users eventually turn to murder to acquire more, but that might have been an exaggeration.
  - reshie 5y ago
    i too think its more about the economics of it. Territory and business with in the criminal element is cut throat.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      This. Drug industry has to settle disputes outside the law because it can't use the courts (and by proxy, threat of state violence) to deal with business disputes. So it's necessarily more violent because there aren't state level resources around to fund expensive stuff like due process. Being inherently criminal probably also ups the violence just from selection bias. Someone rips you off in the drug industry you and your buddies go beat them up and take their stuff of value. Someone rips you off in above the table business you sue them.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  There certainly would be very few, and likely none, murders to obtain cocaine by end users. It does not cause dependency in a way heroin and gabaergics do. Heroin withdrawals are quite painful (literally), and many users are also simply suffering from endogenous depression that responds to almost nothing, and in fact used to be treated by morphine. Same goes for alcohol and benzo withdrawals that WILL give you seizures and quite possibly death. Psychostimulants (cocaine, amphetamines, cathionines, other assorted alkaloids, including caffeine) withdrawals means being very tired, lethargic and sleeping a lot, they are not life threatening.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
If caffeine was both illegal and as in demand as cocaine vs supply then people would indeed kill for it.
- dpark 5y ago
  Your hypothetical situation defines caffeine as being illegal and as in demand as cocaine. So basically you said if caffeine were exactly like cocaine then it would be exactly like cocaine. This is technically true but also vacuous.
mcbits 5y ago
> People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? If people could buy cocaine at Starbucks (or get cheap stuff at a dollar store), would supply be such a problem for users that they resort to crime? If caffeine were banned tomorrow and prices rose a thousand-fold, to what lengths would millions of addicts go to postpone the dreaded headache, constipation and lethargy for another day?
- bb88 5y ago
  Having had caffeine headaches in the past, I just take some aspirin + ibuprofin and turn off the lights. I would expect society would have a bad weekend, and then people would get over it quickly.
- 8note 5y ago
  Lots of people can get opiates pretty easily, and it's not without problems
- pfortuny 5y ago
  You have read about Oxycontin, right? Totally legal and legitimate… Honestly: easily accessible opiates are known (history) to do a lot of damage.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Engineering-MD 5y ago
I suspect the dosing might explain the equivalence. I’ve not come across the study, but if the conclusion was “a 1/100th of the normal dose of cocaine is equivalent to 3 cups of coffee equivalent” I could believe that.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  dosing usually would be dialed-in to provide roughly identical autonomic effects (at least) and then graded increased doses. otherwise it would be a pointless study. here is a very old one, but oral not i.v.: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4900434/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4900434/ 5mg/10mg amphetamine sulphate vs 300mg and 600mg of caffeine (all oral). The study scales ended up being skewed because one subject had paradoxical response and felt relaxed instead on amphetamines, lol. If you have access to the full text, check out page 89: fig5 and fig6. Volkow's lecture may have referenced multiple studies, I've heard that in the context of her lecture on various findings on psychostimulants. amphetamines and cocaine have been fairly repeatedly shown fairly consistent substitutes, so it may have been a study on amp vs caffeine. She just loves to study and talk about cocaine for some reason, has literally a hundred+ papers on it.
  - ajkdhcb2 5y ago
    >The study scales ended up being skewed because one subject had paradoxical response and felt relaxed instead on amphetamines, lol. That happens to me and I want to research what it means but your link doesnt seem to work
    - tbs_ 5y ago
      It means you could have ADD/ADHD.
    - inter_netuser 5y ago
      It’s an old study, from 60s. No OCR. You can get the full text from other sources but it will be useless for your purposes, they don’t spend any time on that at all. Being calm and relaxed on amphetamines can potentially mean there is some arousal disorder: sleep apnea, narcolepsy, delayed sleep syndrome, or just chronic sleep deficit. Maybe concussions (mild TBI), amphetamines work for that too. ADHD is most likely because it’s so common, with sleep apnea being close second. I would rule out ADHD and sleep disorders first. Potentially also, UARS, which is also form of sleep disordered breathing but not commonly detected with current technology (and also not easy to treat), some physicians do a full nasopharyngeal endoscopy under propofol anesthesia. I believe it’s incredibly undiagnosed and probably accounts for more than 10% of apnea cases, but most patients are thin instead of obese and so nobody suspects apnea-like disorder. If you needed braces or needed corrective jaw surgery UARS should be ruled out. ADHD can be somewhat objectively measured with some tests like CPT, but that would also show abnormalities in sleep disorders. If your measures of attention, and sleep study, along with wakefulness maintenance test, if warranted, are all normal, and your blood pressure is normal - maybe you are just a mutant. See a good neuropsych that specializes in sleep disorders. Stanford is one of the better centres for that.
bryanrasmussen 5y ago
>The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I don't know, when's the last time Starbucks was selling pure caffeine injectable via IV? on edit: another day, another downvote, but that doesn't change the fact that the whole discussed comparison is between IV versions of the drug, and as such it's ridiculous to compare cocaine against Starbucks coffee as if that disproves the assertion.
samatman 5y ago
> When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? Allow me to introduce you to a bit of unpleasantness called the Opium Wars. Which could also be called the "Give us the Tea, or Else" wars.
bgroat 5y ago
I've heard this argument in response to sugar. Sugar can't be as addictive as heroin! People give blowjobs to get more heroin, no one gives a blowjob for a chocolate bar. But that has nothing to do with addictiveness. I don't need to murder someone for coffee or provide oral sex for a snickers, because I can easily get those things anywhere, anyway
- dpark 5y ago
  Pretty sure that sugar is not as addictive as heroin. Heroin users can literally die from withdrawal.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    Given now we have dedicated facilities withdrawals from social media, I suppose it is pretty addictive, maybe even as bad heroin, but at least as bad as stimulants.
  - bgroat 5y ago
    My comment was unclear, I don't really buy that. I just mean that it's a bad argument.

by dpark 5y ago

inter_netuser 5y ago

I'm not sure if it was Volkow, or even if she was a PI. She does a lot of research at the NIH on drugs of abuse, but I'm not sure it's her paper. I am quite certain the study exists, because I recall her talking about the findings, and then reading the abstract.

dpark 5y ago
I have high confidence that you will never find this study, and that it doesn’t exist. I’m not accusing you of malice, but I think you must be misremembering something. But I’d love to be wrong. That would be a very interesting result.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  It was in a context of a lecture, it could be that she referenced multiple papers. but, like it or not, caffeine is a psychostimulant, and psychostimulant substitution is fairly well established, idk whats the controversy. if you want to find it, you might have to crawl thru every reference of volkow's 100+ papers on cocaine.
  - prepend 5y ago
    > if you want to find it, you might have to crawl thru every reference of volkow's 100+ papers on cocaine. If you want to use the reference, I suggest you find it and validate it exists before trying to make some claim. I also don’t think anything malicious but think it’s more likely that you misunderstand something than the paper exists and you can’t find it. As a reader trying to determine if your claim is bullshit it’s not worth the risk that you’re wrong for me to exhaustively review all 100+ papers to make sure it doesn’t exist. As the saying goes, “If you hear hoofbeats outside your door, it’s probably a horse not a zebra.”
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  I wasn't able to find a specific research study yet but here's this >Intravenous caffeine also resembles cocaine, she points out. https://archive.fo/bLX94 https://archive.fo/bLX94
  - dpark 5y ago
    Thanks. I wonder how much it resembles cocaine, and at what dosage? This is at least a bit of support regardless.

sockpuppet69 5y ago

xyzzy123 5y ago

OK, I don't have any data either but I'd be pretty surprised if there were a lot of murders by people trying to acquire cocaine. I mean, it could be true? If you were seriously addicted but not high at the time, I expect you might feel agitated, but also kind of sorry for yourself / miserable and not so much in a murdering frame of mind. Large amounts of money (which large amounts of cocaine can be exchanged for), on the other hand...

dpark 5y ago
Honestly I don’t know how prevalent murdering for drug money is at all. My belief that this happens with some regularity for cocaine is based on suspect info now that I think about it. The DARE program told me that definitely 100% of illegal drug users eventually turn to murder to acquire more, but that might have been an exaggeration.
- reshie 5y ago
  i too think its more about the economics of it. Territory and business with in the criminal element is cut throat.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    This. Drug industry has to settle disputes outside the law because it can't use the courts (and by proxy, threat of state violence) to deal with business disputes. So it's necessarily more violent because there aren't state level resources around to fund expensive stuff like due process. Being inherently criminal probably also ups the violence just from selection bias. Someone rips you off in the drug industry you and your buddies go beat them up and take their stuff of value. Someone rips you off in above the table business you sue them.
inter_netuser 5y ago
There certainly would be very few, and likely none, murders to obtain cocaine by end users. It does not cause dependency in a way heroin and gabaergics do. Heroin withdrawals are quite painful (literally), and many users are also simply suffering from endogenous depression that responds to almost nothing, and in fact used to be treated by morphine. Same goes for alcohol and benzo withdrawals that WILL give you seizures and quite possibly death. Psychostimulants (cocaine, amphetamines, cathionines, other assorted alkaloids, including caffeine) withdrawals means being very tired, lethargic and sleeping a lot, they are not life threatening.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

If caffeine was both illegal and as in demand as cocaine vs supply then people would indeed kill for it.

dpark 5y ago
Your hypothetical situation defines caffeine as being illegal and as in demand as cocaine. So basically you said if caffeine were exactly like cocaine then it would be exactly like cocaine. This is technically true but also vacuous.

mcbits 5y ago

> People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? If people could buy cocaine at Starbucks (or get cheap stuff at a dollar store), would supply be such a problem for users that they resort to crime? If caffeine were banned tomorrow and prices rose a thousand-fold, to what lengths would millions of addicts go to postpone the dreaded headache, constipation and lethargy for another day?

bb88 5y ago
Having had caffeine headaches in the past, I just take some aspirin + ibuprofin and turn off the lights. I would expect society would have a bad weekend, and then people would get over it quickly.
8note 5y ago
Lots of people can get opiates pretty easily, and it's not without problems
pfortuny 5y ago
You have read about Oxycontin, right? Totally legal and legitimate… Honestly: easily accessible opiates are known (history) to do a lot of damage.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Engineering-MD 5y ago

I suspect the dosing might explain the equivalence. I’ve not come across the study, but if the conclusion was “a 1/100th of the normal dose of cocaine is equivalent to 3 cups of coffee equivalent” I could believe that.

inter_netuser 5y ago
dosing usually would be dialed-in to provide roughly identical autonomic effects (at least) and then graded increased doses. otherwise it would be a pointless study. here is a very old one, but oral not i.v.: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4900434/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/4900434/ 5mg/10mg amphetamine sulphate vs 300mg and 600mg of caffeine (all oral). The study scales ended up being skewed because one subject had paradoxical response and felt relaxed instead on amphetamines, lol. If you have access to the full text, check out page 89: fig5 and fig6. Volkow's lecture may have referenced multiple studies, I've heard that in the context of her lecture on various findings on psychostimulants. amphetamines and cocaine have been fairly repeatedly shown fairly consistent substitutes, so it may have been a study on amp vs caffeine. She just loves to study and talk about cocaine for some reason, has literally a hundred+ papers on it.
- ajkdhcb2 5y ago
  >The study scales ended up being skewed because one subject had paradoxical response and felt relaxed instead on amphetamines, lol. That happens to me and I want to research what it means but your link doesnt seem to work
  - tbs_ 5y ago
    It means you could have ADD/ADHD.
  - inter_netuser 5y ago
    It’s an old study, from 60s. No OCR. You can get the full text from other sources but it will be useless for your purposes, they don’t spend any time on that at all. Being calm and relaxed on amphetamines can potentially mean there is some arousal disorder: sleep apnea, narcolepsy, delayed sleep syndrome, or just chronic sleep deficit. Maybe concussions (mild TBI), amphetamines work for that too. ADHD is most likely because it’s so common, with sleep apnea being close second. I would rule out ADHD and sleep disorders first. Potentially also, UARS, which is also form of sleep disordered breathing but not commonly detected with current technology (and also not easy to treat), some physicians do a full nasopharyngeal endoscopy under propofol anesthesia. I believe it’s incredibly undiagnosed and probably accounts for more than 10% of apnea cases, but most patients are thin instead of obese and so nobody suspects apnea-like disorder. If you needed braces or needed corrective jaw surgery UARS should be ruled out. ADHD can be somewhat objectively measured with some tests like CPT, but that would also show abnormalities in sleep disorders. If your measures of attention, and sleep study, along with wakefulness maintenance test, if warranted, are all normal, and your blood pressure is normal - maybe you are just a mutant. See a good neuropsych that specializes in sleep disorders. Stanford is one of the better centres for that.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago

>The idea that caffeine is comparable to cocaine is pretty nuts. People murder to get cocaine. When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? I don't know, when's the last time Starbucks was selling pure caffeine injectable via IV? on edit: another day, another downvote, but that doesn't change the fact that the whole discussed comparison is between IV versions of the drug, and as such it's ridiculous to compare cocaine against Starbucks coffee as if that disproves the assertion.

samatman 5y ago

> When’s the last time anyone murdered for Starbucks? Allow me to introduce you to a bit of unpleasantness called the Opium Wars. Which could also be called the "Give us the Tea, or Else" wars.

bgroat 5y ago

I've heard this argument in response to sugar. Sugar can't be as addictive as heroin! People give blowjobs to get more heroin, no one gives a blowjob for a chocolate bar. But that has nothing to do with addictiveness. I don't need to murder someone for coffee or provide oral sex for a snickers, because I can easily get those things anywhere, anyway

dpark 5y ago
Pretty sure that sugar is not as addictive as heroin. Heroin users can literally die from withdrawal.
- inter_netuser 5y ago
  Given now we have dedicated facilities withdrawals from social media, I suppose it is pretty addictive, maybe even as bad heroin, but at least as bad as stimulants.
- bgroat 5y ago
  My comment was unclear, I don't really buy that. I just mean that it's a bad argument.