While coffee is good for your health, snorting coffee powder can cause serious problems. It’s dangerous to take in anything other than oxygen through your nose.
Your nasal passage contains membranes sensitive to irritants like dust and impurities— like those found in coffee grounds!
Why Would Someone Want to Snort Coffee?
In Orange is the New Black, episodes 11 and 12, characters snort ground-up coffee beans to get high. People have been doing it as a desperate attempt to get high when they can’t find any other way.
The insufflation technique involves grinding fresh coffee beans into powder form, sticking your nose into the powder, and inhaling deeply.
The results are said to be mild euphoria followed by a feeling of alertness. These are anecdotal remarks found online. However, science shows nothing to expect when you snort coffee except for intense pain and embarrassing side effects.
What Happens When You Snort Coffee?
If you snort coffee, it will hurt badly. The caffeine in the coffee helps with alertness and focus, but it doesn’t go into your bloodstream when you snort it.
The nose is a highly vascular organ that provides a direct pathway to the brain. It also contains numerous nerve endings, making it extremely sensitive to pain, touch, and temperature.
Taking cocaine through the nose results in rapid absorption of the substance into the bloodstream through the nasal tissues and membranes.
That’s because cocaine is pure and readily soluble. As for coffee powder, you’ll be in for a surprise.
The Caffeine in Coffee is Not Readily Available
Unlike cocaine, the caffeine in coffee is not readily available. While snorting cocaine leads to a faster and stronger high, snorting coffee powder won’t have similar effects because it can’t be absorbed through your mucous membranes like cocaine.
Coffee is generally brewed at a high temperature to extract caffeine from the coffee beans. Water is also needed to remove caffeine from coffee.
Therefore, it’s unlikely that any of the caffeine will be able to get into your bloodstream via nose-diving into a cup full of ground beans. The powder will lead to nasal blockage for hours.
But the moisture in your nasal passages dissolves the coffee powder. You might get a caffeine kick that could lead to headaches, heart palpitations, and other overdose symptoms (like nausea).
But beware that coffee dust may get into your lungs and damage them over time.
Why Snorting Coffee Is A Bad Idea
The dangers of snorting coffee are clear: you could irritate or damage the lining of your nasal cavity, resulting in inflammation and bleeding.
You may even get an infection in your sinuses from this practice if bacteria are present!
It is also important to remember that coffee isn’t sterile. There are fungal spores inside raw coffee waiting to grow on your body parts.
These spores can infect and damage soft tissue such as cartilage or bone cells if they get into contact with them through a process known as biofilm formation.
Does snorting coffee give you a high?
The answer is no. Snorting coffee won’t give you a high, but there’s a good reason why you shouldn’t try it. Snorting coffee can be dangerous like any other substance that goes into your body through the nose.
While caffeine doesn’t produce an immediate high when ingested orally, there are still risks associated with snorting caffeine.
The lungs also aren’t meant for ingestion. You can harm the lungs if you inhale too much coffee at once. If you’re looking for a more intense buzz from your coffee fix, drink it instead of snorting it!
Does Snorting Coffee Damage The Brain?
No, snorting coffee will not damage your brain. The nose and throat are made of cartilage and mucus, good at keeping out foreign objects.
The main issue with snorting coffee is that it can cause a blockage in your nasal cavity, leading to sneezing fits or trouble breathing (in rare cases).
Aside from caffeine, coffee contains other compounds that can irritate the nose and throat if inhaled directly into them—these range from citric acid to chlorogenic acid, tannins, thiamine, and others.
If you accidentally breathe in some of these particles while trying to snort coffee grounds, they may cause lung inflammation.
Does Snorting Coffee Cause Diarrhea?
The body’s response to snorting coffee is similar to when you drink too much of it: diarrhea and vomiting. Your body rejects foreign substances like coffee powder, eliminating them quickly.
Coffee snorting can lead to other serious health problems besides the ones mentioned above.
How to Maximize Your Buzz From Coffee
Instead of snorting coffee, here are some ways to get a more significant buzz from simply drinking it.
1) Use a French Press Instead Of A Drip Coffee Maker
French presses use about twice as much ground coffee as drip or espresso machines, so you get more caffeine per cup.
2) Drink Freshly Roasted Coffee
Choose coffee roasted within the last two weeks to get more caffeine. Stale beans that have been sitting around for months lead to weak brews.
3) Choose Light Roasts
If you grind your beans, opt for light roasts over dark roasts — they contain more caffeine than their darker counterparts.
4) Drink it Black
The flavor of coffee is best when it’s pure and unadulterated by milk or sugar. If you like your coffee sweetened or flavored, try adding these ingredients after brewing instead of before, so they don’t affect the taste as much.
5) Experiment With Different Types Of Beans
Try different beans and blends until you find what works best for you. Some people love spicy blends, while others prefer milder varieties. Some people like their java strong, while others prefer milder flavors.
What Happens If You Snort Coffee: Wrapping Up
You should not snort coffee. It is not a good idea and can be dangerous. The caffeine in coffee is not readily available to the body via this method and therefore does not produce the desired effects.
Some potential health risks are also associated with snorting caffeine, including damage to your air cavities.