Pharma companies would already have a caffeine equivalent that would be only slightly different in structure so it would circumvent the law. It would then be sold at exorbitant prices and people would still pay even with the side effect of sometimes you eat someone's face. Of course they would then sell you something else to stop the side effects. You would also have the caffeine purists who would start their own speak easies and organized crime. People "abiding by the law" would start calling the purist, plants, since that is where caffeine is coming from, while the synthetic caffeine users would be called zombies for the obvious face eating reasons. This whole thing would cause even greater divides between already split countries leading to all out war. WWIII plants vs zombies.
That would require passing a law to ban both tea and coffee. And who do you think will bother to sit through a meeting without tea or coffee to even discuss such a bill?
Any government which makes caffeine illegal must be prepared to enforce that law with mass violence, or let it be ignored.
Given how unlikely your average cop is going to enforce a law they regularly brea... Oh, nevermind. Yeah it'd be a shit show. Demonstrations, arrests, black markets, the whole nine yards.
Michael Pollen wrote a audible book about how modern capitalism wouldn't have been possible without the invention of the light bulb and the abundance of caffeinated beverages as it facilitated a 24 hour economy. Literally titled Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World.
So what would happen if the government illegalized caffeine? I'd say they'd be more likely to prohibit literally any other drug including alcohol and tobacco. But if I were to indulge this hypothetical scenario, I'd say other new stimulants without any legal status would be invented to replace caffeine.
cocaine sales would go up. People would try microdosing. Some of those people would end up regular dosing.
There would be a black market, not only for coffee and tea, but also for caffeine powder, which people would sprinkle into anything.
Peoples' overall caffeine consumption would go down. That girl from my high school who got the shakes every afternoon would probably have been better off.
Caffeine doesn't require a laboratory or manufacturing operations. It can come from plants. What would happen is people start growing and developing an underground caffeine distribution network and underground caffeine import network from countries that aren't dumb.
Weed users are less than 20% of the US population and that was a shadow industry bigger than most legal industries. Compare to 60% drink coffee every day, then there's tea drinkers and of other caffeinated beverages; people would riot and/or go underground to get their caffeine.
Like "you get a fine" illegal, or "you go to jail" illegal, or "Judge Dredd executes you in the street for possessing stimulants" illegal? If the punishment is light or the risk is low, many people probably just keep using it, like alcohol during Prohibition. If there's a harsh punishment and the risk of actually being punished is high, there might be riots.
People would suddenly realize it’s better to go to bed earlier and sleep longer than hitting snooze 5 times and needing that energy boost every morning. Who am I kidding, people would revolt.
Same thing that happens with most drugs. It'll still get in, prices will skyrocket, and it'll be laced with fentanyl so instead of enjoying a nice cup of coffee, you'll die because the government tried to tell you what you can do to your own body again.
I think violent crime would rise for roughly the period of time it takes to get over caffeine withdrawals. Other than that probably a bunch of illegal coffee stills.
If people couldn't find alternatives and caffeine wasn't illegally available...
Many people who need coffee to function in the morning would lose their shit. Overworked people and workers with really long shifts will not be able to keep up. People would probably fall asleep at work.
Everyone would be miserable at first, so you wouldn’t want to be out in public for the first week or so, then after the withdrawal subsided it would be more or less back to normal. I went off caffeine for a while, once you get over the hump you realize you don’t actually need it as much as you thought.
Well, without caffeine i would turn into an ax wielding murderous psychopath. Humanity would seize to exist, nature would heal and the world would rebuild itself. Lizards would become the dominant species and tadaaaa!
The software industry would stall out, mass unemployment, dramatically more car crashes. Coffee, black and green tea, most soda, and some drugs would disappear from shelves and stores. Coffee shops would all close, you'd be able to get pretty much just water with your big Mac, midol takers would be furious and in pain, ADHD people would have to try harder to fall asleep. For lack of a better term, there would be a rubber band effect apocalypse while the shadow markets got set up and supplies