My bet it's both self-medication to chase away the seasonal affective disorder blahs and needing to stay up late searching for and applying to the shrinking number of decent jobs in town.

Seriously? Someone needed a study to discover this in the year 2010? With Starbucks based out of Seattle and Fresh Cup -- the trade magazine for the retail coffee business for most of the past 20 years -- with offices above the Russell St. BBQ on MLK?

What did people think all the coffee shops were selling?

This is the most important information I have ever read. Thank you.

And all those nicotine freaks are switching over to a ready alternative...caffeine.

Geez, I wonder why the environmental wack jobs telling cityhall what to do aren't telling cityhall to ban coffee drinking in the city of Portland. This caffeine shows up in tests of the city's water wells, and its got to be going into the Williamette River. It wouldn't be the enviro's are trading economic prosperity in the form of coffee drinking over the environment.

Gee and to think some people wanted to outlaw caffeine when the Harrison Narcotics Act in 1917, or thereabouts. Whoda thunk it?

I'm doing my part.

Perhaps people would prefer living in Salt Lake City which --and I'm just guessing here -- is probably the least addicted to caffeine.

Never been a coffee drinker myself. I like my drinks cold.

I had a friend in school who got busted drinking underage and had to go to one of those diversion classes on addiction.

He said the teacher arrived and spent the first ten minutes trying to figure out where the coffee was and how they could get coffee in the room and explaining how he couldn't focus on anything until he had a cup of coffee.

He apparently also took frequent cigarette breaks.

Go figure.

Heh...Carlin talking about growing up with all the DRUGS signs. I remember them.

I like me drugs cold, too. Iced latte, drug of choice, even unto December.