title_body: Should coffee be regulated?
upvoted_answer: Generally, governments find it necessary to regulate addictive substances due to quality of life or health issues that stem from abuse/addiction. While I will neither support or attack this kind of reasoning, when you think about children born addicted to heroin or methamphetamine, the property crimes generally associated with addiction, and the additional strain on our health care system, you can begin to at least understand it.  
  
  Coffee addiction is far less financially taxing (my dependence costs me roughly $10/week or less), less likely to disturb my health in any appreciable way, and socially acceptable at all levels of society.  
  
  The coffee industry generates plenty of revenue for government as is.  Starbucks is paying their taxes just like every other corporation.  Creating an additional branch of government employees to regulate or adding additional employees to an existing administration (FDA perhaps?) are all expenses to regulate something that isn't currently a problem.  So it's an expense without any appreciable benefit. 
  
  TL;DR  Since coffee is a low impact and highly supportable dependence, government has little or nothing to gain by regulating it's use.