Everything You Need To Know About Khat
A green leaf that’s also a mild stimulant, khat is quietly and quickly becoming popular in the United States. One thing to note: it’s also illegal.
The documents noted that until 2013, there had been no khat seizures in the Bay Area for more than ten years, but the drug’s sudden surge in popularity is not limited to California. Last week in New York, authorities announced that seventeen people had been charged with importing and distributing khat in New York, Ohio, and Massachusetts. Still, due to its largely underground status, few people understand the historical and cultural importance of the khat plant, and its complicated status as a drug.
Native to the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, khat is a shrub, generally between three and 16 feet tall, that thrives in arid climes. Traditionally, the plants tops and green leaves were harvested and chewed as a social stimulant, similar to coffee. According to a review published through the University of Bergen, Norway, the earliest known written references to khat date back to the 11th century, but the first scientific description was not created until 1775.
In Yemen, people have been chewing khat since at least the 1800s, as witnessed by Charles Dickens. In 1856, Dickens described the plant in Household Words, a weekly magazine he edited that decade:
[mf_blockquote layout=”left”]”The leaves of the drug called kat are the chief source of pleasurable excitement in these districts of East Africa. Botanists, taking the native name for the plant, turn it into Catha edulis, eatable kat. It is much used by the Arabs, to whom it is sent in camel loads, consisting of a number of small parcels, each containing about forty slender twigs, with the leaves attached, carefully wrapped, so as to avoid exposure to the air. These leaves are chewed, and act upon the spirits of those using them, much as a strong dose of green tea acts upon us in Europe, when it acts agreeably. Europeans used to stronger stimulants, are little affected by the use of kat, but among the more temperate Arabs it is so welcome a provocative to good humour, that about two hundred and eighty camel-loads of it are used ever year in Aden only.”[/mf_blockquote]
Today, khat is grown in countries like South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, and Somalia, and according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 10 million people around the world chew it every day. In Yemen, khat is a cash crop and consumes much of the country’s agricultural resources. The plants take about seven or eight years to reach their full height and require little maintenance, other than ample amounts of water.
According to Qahtan Al-Asbahi, who works for the National Integrated Water Resources Management Program in Yemen, between 27 and 30 percent of Yemen’s ground water is used to irrigate khat, while almost 60 percent of the cropland is reserved for that plant alone.
Healthy khat shrubs can be harvested four times a year, and are a reliable source of income for Yemeni farmers, selling for millions more Yemeni rial than comparable fruit and vegetable crops. Farmers and other workers enjoy its fatigue and hunger-reducing effects — Vice reports that cab drivers in San Francisco likely use it for that purpose ”“ but in Yemen and other countries, it is a deeply rooted social ritual, as well. According to the World Health Organization, it is estimated that up to 90 percent of adult Yemeni males chew for three or four hours each day, while a World Bank study estimated that 73 percent of Yemeni women also use khat.
The plant’s effects have been compared to strong coffee, a less addictive cocaine, and (of course) green tea; “mild euphoria and excitement” are the desired outcomes. Generally, khat is consumed fresh because the strongest chemical ”“ cathinone, a schedule I drug in the U.S. as of 1993 ”“ breaks down within 48 hours, leaving only the milder cathine behind. It is, however, sometimes dried and served as tea.
In the 1980s, WHO declared that khat could cause “mild to moderate psychological dependence,” since its addictive powers are said to be less than tobacco and alcohol. Despite that, the drug has been increasingly targeted overseas by government organizations. In the U.K., khat was declared an illegal substance on June 24 this year. Although the plant itself is not particularly addictive or dangerous, khat remains controversial, even in Yemen, where critics say it is an expensive habit in one of the world’s poorest countries that also drains the water supply. But in other regions, such as the county of Meru in Kenya, khat farms are relatively peaceful places that provide important work and income for the country’s youths, which are being threatened by government bans. Regardless, the plant’s cultural and historical importance cannot be denied. Nor can its relative safety, when compared to drugs like heroin.
Last February, the U.K. government’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs published a report, where experts unanimously opposed the khat ban. Their verdict: “It would be inappropriate and disproportionate to classify khat under the Misuse of Drugs Act.” Too bad the government rarely listens.
Follow us
Republish!
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Want to republish a Modern Farmer story?
We are happy for Modern Farmer stories to be shared, and encourage you to republish our articles for your audience. When doing so, we ask that you follow these guidelines:
Please credit us and our writers
For the author byline, please use “Author Name, Modern Farmer.” At the top of our stories, if on the web, please include this text and link: “This story was originally published by Modern Farmer.”
Please make sure to include a link back to either our home page or the article URL.
At the bottom of the story, please include the following text:
“Modern Farmer is a nonprofit initiative dedicated to raising awareness and catalyzing action at the intersection of food, agriculture, and society. Read more at <link>Modern Farmer</link>.”
Use our widget
We’d like to be able to track our stories, so we ask that if you republish our content, you do so using our widget (located on the left hand side of the article). The HTML code has a built-in tracker that tells us the data and domain where the story was published, as well as view counts.
Check the image requirements
It’s your responsibility to confirm you're licensed to republish images in our articles. Some images, such as those from commercial providers, don't allow their images to be republished without permission or payment. Copyright terms are generally listed in the image caption and attribution. You are welcome to omit our images or substitute with your own. Charts and interactive graphics follow the same rules.
Don’t change too much. Or, ask us first.
Articles must be republished in their entirety. It’s okay to change references to time (“today” to “yesterday”) or location (“Iowa City, IA” to “here”). But please keep everything else the same.
If you feel strongly that a more material edit needs to be made, get in touch with us at [email protected]. We’re happy to discuss it with the original author, but we must have prior approval for changes before publication.
Special cases
-
Extracts. You may run the first few lines or paragraphs of the article and then say: “Read the full article at Modern Farmer” with a link back to the original article.
-
Quotes. You may quote authors provided you include a link back to the article URL.
-
Translations. These require writer approval. To inquire about translation of a Modern Farmer article, contact us at [email protected]
-
Signed consent / copyright release forms. These are not required, provided you are following these guidelines.
-
Print. Articles can be republished in print under these same rules, with the exception that you do not need to include the links.
Tag us
When sharing the story on social media, please tag us using the following: - Twitter (@ModFarm) - Facebook (@ModernFarmerMedia) - Instagram (@modfarm)
Use our content respectfully
Modern Farmer is a nonprofit and as such we share our content for free and in good faith in order to reach new audiences. Respectfully,
-
No selling ads against our stories. It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads.
-
Don’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually.
-
You have no rights to sell, license, syndicate, or otherwise represent yourself as the authorized owner of our material to any third parties. This means that you cannot actively publish or submit our work for syndication to third party platforms or apps like Apple News or Google News. We understand that publishers cannot fully control when certain third parties automatically summarize or crawl content from publishers’ own sites.
Keep in touch
We want to hear from you if you love Modern Farmer content, have a collaboration idea, or anything else to share. As a nonprofit outlet, we work in service of our community and are always open to comments, feedback, and ideas. Contact us at [email protected].Everything You Need To Know About Khat
by Monica Kim, Modern Farmer
July 8, 2014
Modern Farmer Weekly
Solutions Hub
Innovations, ideas and inspiration. Actionable solutions for a resilient food system.
ExploreExplore other topics
Share With Us
We want to hear from Modern Farmer readers who have thoughtful commentary, actionable solutions, or helpful ideas to share.
Submit
I wwant to buy 5 khat seeds to grow to savw my life. I am dieing of lung disease. khat worked well when I grew it when it was legal plants died on me got toocold. I need 5 seeds to grow some more. I have one year or a little more to live. khat will help me. can you sell me some khat seeds. ron
I get very Intense Headaches on a Daily Bases here , And am looking for something more Natural and Nature Grown Products
Can you tell me what Khat or Kat is all used for. And tell me all the Side effects please.
Also interest on Costs . And if possible the seeds
Can anyone tell me where to buy khat?
Why do these first few visible comments have huge grammatical errors? Is this a legit site being spammed or a spam site?
You forgot something really important… you said khat is growing in Kenya, Mozambic, South africa Yémen… but you forgot!! The biggest productor of the world is ETHIOPIA !! and the biggest consomator is Yémen (they buy to Ethiopia).
Hi I’m a former math addict and was wondering if cat is anywhere similar to the effects of that I’ve been in recovery for the past eight years struggling in an out with my addiction and I’m trying to find a substitute that’s not as harsh and that is more people friendly I would say I am more acceptable by public I I’m not so fond upon So if there’s anyway to obtain cat seeds the web or if it’s still a scheduled substance substance and how readily available is it in the United States places such as Colorado
I heard it’s good for ADHD, but I see they compare it to cocaine. They also say there’s no evidence of that, so that makes me suspicious. What do you guys think?