strawman. i never called anyone a puritan, and you’re being overdramatic by personally labeling yourself as an oppressor rather than just someone who passively condones oppression. if you want to talk about other drugs we can do that (i’m about to reply to someone else who mentioned cocaine), but right now we’re talking about caffeine. caffeine is safer to use than most other drugs, there’s no clearly demonstrable reason why kids shouldn’t be taking it. nobody was ever talking about “limits” or “supervision” afaik, and that’s actually one of my biggest issues with outright banning it. if teenagers are consuming caffeine out in the open and openly discussing it, there’s ample opportunity for peers as well as responsible adults to notice and intervene with bad habits, they have support and can talk about how to do this healthily. if you ban it, they’re going to hide it so it’ll be a lot harder to reach out and help them if they’re having issues, and they’ll feel like they’re inherently doing something they’re not supposed to be doing, so they’ll be less concerned about looking out for themselves, and they’ll have less access to information about using it safely. remember that kids are forced into an inhumane schedule of sleep deprivation and pointless work, and especially for undiagnosed/unmedicated adhd or possibly other neurodivergence, caffeine can be just as important to their functioning as it is for many adults. how much can we ask of them?