As Chomsky said, the way to deal with drug abuse is through education and treatment. That’s how we successfully reduced smoking, drinking coffee and other unhealthy habits in the USA. Not by throwing people in jail.
> Studies have shown that coffee may have health benefits, including protecting against Parkinson's disease, type 2 diabetes and liver disease, including liver cancer. Coffee also appears to improve cognitive function and decrease the risk of depression.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-he...
From my layman's perspective, I would think a doctor would say there isn't a consensus on whether coffee is holistically healthy. In other words, it's good for some things, bad for others.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/12/upshot/more-consensus-on-...
Highlight from that article:
>There have been two meta-analyses published within the last year or so. The first reviewed 20 studies, including almost a million people, and the second included 17 studies containing more than a million people. Both found that drinking coffee was associated with a significantly reduced chance of death. I can’t think of any other product that has this much positive epidemiologic evidence going for it.
I don't understand how you can claim coffee is bad for your heart in good faith if you have read _any_ of the research... for example, this meta-analysis of 36 studies: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24201300
> A nonlinear association between coffee consumption and CVD risk was observed in this meta-analysis. Moderate coffee consumption was inversely significantly associated with CVD risk, with the lowest CVD risk at 3 to 5 cups per day, and heavy coffee consumption was not associated with elevated CVD risk.
I think any doctor worth their salt would tell you that there is a strong scientific consensus that drinking coffee is not only completely safe, but it has preventative effects towards cancer, cardiovascular disease, Parkinson's, and Type-2 diabetes.
Here's a bonus review of 112 meta-analyses: http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-nutr-07...
> Of the 59 unique outcomes examined in the selected 112 meta-analyses of observational studies, coffee was associated with a probable decreased risk of breast, colorectal, colon, endometrial, and prostate cancers; cardiovascular disease and mortality; Parkinson's disease; and type-2 diabetes.
A cup of day has solely positive effects, as far as I can tell from reading the research.
All things in moderation and moderation in all things.
And I agree with you, at least anecdotally, that this happens.
And it's only bad for your teeth if you load it with sugar.
Not even one doctor I've talked to has said this to me about coffee. Several have remarked on the interesting results of recent large studies. (See moozilla's comments here, in particular one study said: "Moderate coffee consumption was inversely significantly associated with CVD [cardio-vascular disease] risk, with the lowest CVD risk at 3 to 5 cups per day.")
Also taxation. Ideally the taxes should make people understand the true cost of their purchase. (I know this is not usually how cigarette tax is actually determined)