160: Dialectics of Coffee

This week I talk about coffee: the history, the pharmacology, the politics and the legal battles. I take a dialectical perspective, which just means I focus on both sides of the coffee discussion: it has been blamed for sexual promiscuity and inability to perform; it has been the instigator of both dictatorships and revolutions; it has been labeled both a drug and an anti-drug in different times and places. 

I also talk about caffeine as a drug and the reason we don't live in a world where we are at war with caffeine in the same way we are at war with so many other drugs and drug users. I discuss Coca-Cola's caffeine lawsuit, cocaine/coca, feminist movement and coffee, neoliberalism and coffee, and the USA's persistent habit of meddling in the affairs of S. American countries.