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Comment by 0xcde4c3db | Hacker News Reader

People understandably get hung up on the social/legal status of caffeine, but I think there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the notion of a DUI charge for it. In several important ways it acts like a milder form of cocaine or amphetamine, and with high enough doses it can cause similar behavioral problems ("tweaking", paranoia, mania, even psychosis).

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I'd be more worried about people using caffeine to mask sleepiness, which is a severe problem for driving.

But if they think he was driving tired they should have charged him with that.

I feel like you'd have to drink a lot of coffee...

In a small segment of the population, a few cups of coffee may be enough to cause mild forms of the mentioned symptoms. But this is more of a genetic anomaly / over-sensitivity.

In an "average" adult, it would require a lot of caffeine to trigger these symptoms -- dozens of cups over a very short period of time. Caffeine pills or powder would be a far more likely explanation. And yeah, driving after popping a significant number of caffeine pills is probably as dangerous as driving after ingesting a small dose of cocaine. TBF if the caffeine concentrations were such that this were a likely explanation, I bet we'd be hearing about it.

When my tolerance is low it doesn't take much to make me twitchy and impair my thinking.

> twitchy and impair my thinking

I'm not sure how dangerous those symptoms are in the context of driving. Someone should do a study.

I was referring to these symptoms, which are unarguably dangerous in the context of driving: "tweaking", paranoia, mania, even psychosis.

At one point, I got a large coffee, about 20oz, from a shop in San Marcos, TX. After finishing it over 15 or 20 minutes, I found myself with a full on stimulant overdose: dizziness, sweating, confusion, irritability, shaking... It took me a couple of hours before I would have felt safe driving.

I am a caffeine addict, at about a pot per day at the time of this story.

I'd argue you probably couldn't consume the necessary volume of coffee to get that kind of dosage. You'd probably need to take caffeine pills.

You're actually trying to compare coffee to amphetamines? Did you even read your own post?

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