https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7714788/
>“The mood effects but not the physiological effects of intravenous caffeine were similar to those previously observed with cocaine in studies using similar methods and subjects.”
https://archive.fo/bLX94
>This is obviously worrying. “Cocaine is one of the most addictive substances
of abuse,” says Volkow. “Ritalin we give to children.” She stresses, however,
that taking a stimulant orally is very different to injecting or snorting it.
Intravenous caffeine also resembles cocaine, she points out.
h/t to those with better google-fu than mine. all from this thread.
fwiw, caffeine is also the most common adulterant in cocaine, so chances are your iv cocaine also had a good amount of caffeine and lidocaine in it.
....but why would you even try pure i.v. caffeine though? cocaine i can understand, but caffeine?
> ....but why would you even try pure i.v. caffeine though? cocaine i can understand, but caffeine?
Sometimes when you're an IV drug user and you're out of real drugs, you do weird shit. I had a tub of anhydrous caffeine, had to try it.
I get that you think you can disprove things like this with science, and that's generally a good perspective to have. But cocaine and caffeine are nothing alike. It's the difference between a kiss on the cheek and a punch in the face. You could describe those two things in the same terms if you wanted to be abstract and clinical enough, but the idea that they are indistinguishable is laughable to anyone who has experienced both.
Caffeine is a moderate boost to wakefulness. You feel a little more energetic, a little more awake. Maybe a bit happier. Cocaine is every form of success you've ever felt multiplied by 100, rolled into one, and compressed into 3 seconds. You ever win a low probability bet, or be right about something when everyone you know doubted you? That's what cocaine feels like.
Shoot up caffeine and you might work a little harder for a couple of hours. Shoot up cocaine and you might marry a stripper you don't even know yet.
EDIT: What I will say is that, perhaps at a sufficiently low dose, they may be hard to distinguish. But at the doses consumed by recreational users, they very much are not. My guess is that these studies are using very low doses of cocaine compared to what a recreational user would take, for ethical/safety reasons. So, in that context, it may be true, but you should not take that to mean that cocaine and caffeine are in any meaningful sense indistinguishable.
