On any given day, the coffee house in the Amherst College campus center offers a dozen brews, plus espresso. But today the pots were covered with white shrouds, and the dispensers in the dining hall were empty.

This was the day that coffee was banned forever from the campus.

Or so it seemed. Actually, it was an elaborate class project staged by an art student, Andrew Epstein, and pulled off with the help of friends and the administration.

While not exactly the War of the Worlds, students and staff members did panic when they showed up for their morning cup and found signs that read: ''In order to curb the use of caffeine at Amherst College, the sale and distribution of coffee are no longer permitted on campus. Effective Immediately.'' Questions were to be directed to the Caffeine Control Coordinator.

And indeed, the dining services, which were in on the joke, brewed not a drop today.

Mr. Epstein, who is 22, conceived the Day of No Joe as a final project for his art class on social sculpture, to draw attention to what he regards as the hypocrisy of drug laws. A painting is easily ignored, he said, but remove part of a person's daily routine, and notice is taken.