eli5: How is caffeine pretty much harmless in moderation when other stimulants like cocaine and amphetamines so hard on the body and brain?
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It all depends on what’s meant by “moderation”
A couple daily coffees is a moderate amount of caffeine. A similar kind of moderation with cocaine might come by chewing a couple coca leaves. Many ADHD patients are prescribed a moderate amount of amphetamines every day.
Presumably, what you’re imagining as unsafe “moderation” for cocaine or amphetamines is just being measured against heavy recreational users and troubled addicts. But just because something is a lot less than those folk doesn’t mean that it’s “moderate”. It can still be a lot.
Sustainable moderation is just a lot less than you think for certain things.
Further, every substance has its own measure of how much is very toxic/deadly and how much can be safely processed by the body. For some drugs, those are so close together that’s it very easy to overshoot the mark when aiming for “moderate” and so any kind of use is high risk. Others are so far apart that overdoing it is hard to do on accident. A lot of potential medications are rejected or regulated for being too risky in this way, and many refined street drugs push that line.
Caffeine has a wide range of safe dosage in customary usage (coffee, soda, etc) and you don’t have to worry about it too much. Meanwhile, cocaine or amphetamines have a narrower range, and black market sourcing makes it harder to even know how much you’re having (or whether other unexpected substances are mixed in). So “moderation” becomes really tough, especially when these drugs are pushed underground and away from production/sale regulations.
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