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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

I feel comfortable with that comparison, yes. Neither nicotine nor caffeine are carcinogenic. Both are CVD risks in the quantities consumed by addicts; nicotine probably more so, but caffeine has other bad effects on GI health.

Downthread, you suggested you were unfamiliar with the notion of having a week of migraines from quitting coffee. I think what's happening here is that you're not very familiar with the downsides of serious coffee/caffeine habits, and that's why the comparison seems silly to you.

I don't think it's a silly comparison.

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I'm aware that caffeine can be psychologically addictive (just as anything habitual can be) and that there are physical withdrawal symptoms for some heavy users, but those symptoms last only around a week.

Ultimately, anybody can choose to stop drinking coffee at any time. I know people who have tried to make that choice with nicotine and failed repeatedly.

Ultimately, anybody can choose to stop drinking coffee at any time.

I've seriously attempted to quit intake of caffeine about 6-8 times over the last 2 decades. In each case, I was able to temporarily quit, with withdrawal symptoms being more in the 2-4 week range. However, in each case, a small amount of caffeine at a casual event lead to intake of "normal" (for me) amounts of caffeine immediately. I would love to quit it (as I understand it's health consequences).

As a reference, I would say that I would be in the "heavy users" category with a daily intake of about 750-1000mg.

That is arguably (by at least one Johns Hopkins professor [1]) a purely psychological response. Anything can become psychologically addictive with habitual use, but that doesn't make it a substantively addictive substance. You could practically equate it to "porn addiction" in that sense.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffeine_dependence

The article you linked to does not say that the Griffiths claims caffeine dependence is "purely psychological" in the sense that you appear to be using it as an opposite of physical dependence. The article states that Griffiths thinks that caffeine dependence should be considered a psychological disorder, like other substance addictions.

If you look at the sources the Wikipedia articles cites for its mentions of Griffiths, the National Geographic article compares caffeine addiction to heroin addiction and attributes to Griffiths a claim that as little as half a cup of coffee a day can produce physical dependence. The paper appears to agree, from the information in the abstract.

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