Over the past year we have been reading articles like this & this, which result massive arrests due to Khat smuggling. And the sensation that Ethiopian worldwide are in smuggling operations are seeing the consequences.
Both World Health Organization and the US Department of Justice classify it as addictive drug and recommend that all countries deem it illegal. Scientists that have tested the chemicals present in the so called “drug” and imply that Cathinone, which is the one of the two controlled substances, is not active in DRY Khat leaves. The other controlled substance called Cathine is the only controlled substance that is present in DRY Khat.
The important word here is "dry"
Controlled Substances Act (CSA), when it was enacted, had five classifications called schedules. Cathinone is Schedule I meaning of the highest potency as a drug. And Cathine is a schedule IV meaning the potency of the chemical as a controlled substance is not much. Schedule IV:
(A) The drug or other substance has a low potential for abuse relative to the drugs or other substances in
schedule III.
(B) The drug or other substance has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) Abuse of the drug or other substance may lead to limited physical dependence or psychological dependence relative to the drugs or other substances in schedule III.
Notice B, some of the drug classified as Schedule IV are sold on over the counter medications in most other countries, and easily perscribed in the US.
…the special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's New York office, called it "highly addictive and devastating" to the people who use it.
"It is suspected that there are ties to some type of terrorist organizations,"…
…intelligence suggests the money was headed for "countries in East Africa which are a hotbed for Sunni extremism and a wellspring for terrorists associated with Al-Qaida."
Khat is highly addictive and; not only is it devastating to the health, it is linked to terrorism is that what you are saying. When did FBI agents become politicians? Go catch a colombian drug lord, or is it that your Senators campaign was supported through the Peso ?
If only Khat smugglers had a lobbyists like Big Tobacco and Arms manufactures, Khat would have been legal. The US government is ridiculous at times. Don't forget these are the same people that abolished alcohol in the 1920's. Wine was ok for Jesus but not for Americans. Casino's pay enough taxes in the State of Nevada, that they lobbied and made prostitution legal.
Published by July 28th, 2006 in Current Issues.Send this post to a friend
what exactly are u suggesting? should chat be legal throughout the world?
There is nothing wrong by chewing organic grown leaves called “Chat” once a week. My uncle chewed all his life, he raised 9 kids and run a successful business (Sponsored by Chat). Chat is our oil in Ethiopia, the government of Ethiopia also benefits from exports and taxes… Chat would never become illegal in Ethiopia! Nor any other Arab countries as well as Europe! This is another American propaganda to block any profit that will be made on Chat, since they have no take on this. I totally agree with Nolawi on his take. If Chat becomes illegal, They will be starvation among poor people who depends on selling Chat along country side… Poor new farmers of Chat (Without any experience growing Chat) has ruined the soil where they used grow Coffee plants and replacing it with Chat tree… Coffee plants actually can be harvested for many years to come, but if you plant Chat the soil in the area can only be used about 3 years then it will be useless to grow anything.
This is my Hulet Santim.
SoSit
It’s funny a friend of a friend I met this past weekend “Kareem Fahim” wrote an articel on Today’s NYTimes July 31, 2006
Crackdown Makes the Pleasures of ‘a Cultural Thing’ Riskier
By KAREEM FAHIM
It is called khat or tchat or miraa, and like sugared tea or a drag of apple tobacco from a water pipe, a dollop of it stuffed in a cheek releases a taste from home.
In New York, chewers of khat, a plant used as a stimulant, buy it to enjoy at the holidays or to share at weddings or bachelor parties. Some people chew the reddish-green plant daily. Others use it only on the weekends, cheeks bulging, and trade jokes in Amharic or Arabic or Somali.
“At social gatherings, it’s normal,” said Abdul Mubarez, 45, the president of the Yemeni-American Association, based in Brooklyn. “It’s a cultural thing, not an addiction.”
But khat is illegal in the United States, and a crackdown by federal and city law enforcement officers has made the easy pleasure of consuming it riskier, khat chewers say.
More than a decade ago, khat was sold more or less openly, in delis and cafes in Harlem and Brooklyn frequented by immigrants from countries where the plant is grown or chewed. Now, bags or bundles of the shrub are obtained mainly through phone calls to sellers.
On a recent evening, a group of men, all but one of them of Yemeni descent, stood on a sidewalk in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, and discussed benefits ascribed to the drug.
“Some people chew seven days a week,” said one man, explaining that frequent chewers were not addicts, but usually shopkeepers or other merchants who work 12-hour days.
Khat, which is also associated with sexual stamina, is meant to power them through these long shifts. Students also find that it enhances concentration, the men said.
Last week, 30 people who the authorities said were members of the country’s largest khat distribution network were arrested in New York and elsewhere.
The plant, though it is legal in some European countries, is classified as a controlled substance in the United States, in the same class of drugs as heroin and marijuana.
The suspects were charged not only with smuggling, distributing and selling khat but also with laundering money, through the use of informal money remitters.
That charge has raised fears that khat-chewing, a practice that in parts of East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula is considered as normal as sipping a cup of coffee, will be associated with terrorism.
“It used to be just a social issue,” said one Yemeni man, who refused to give his name. “Now, it’s a political issue,” he said.
A spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, John P. Gilbride, said the suspects had not been connected to terrorism or violence, though the investigation continued.
And he said the authorities had focused on khat primarily because it was considered harmful and had not yet found a mainstream audience. While primarily a euphoric stimulant, khat can have side effects, including hypertension, hallucinations, impotence and bouts of violence, prosecutors said.
Khat has been connected to at least one murder, in 2004, when a man shot and killed a woman while trying to steal khat from a house in Minneapolis, Mr. Gilbride said.
The plant, which is chewed by people in a swath of land stretching from Tanzania to Yemen, became more widely known to Americans during the military intervention in Somalia in 1992.
The debate over khat in Africa and Yemen, broadly speaking, focuses on economic and social impacts, including claims that it drains resources that would be better used to grow other crops.
Seizures of khat coming to the United States peaked in 2003, when federal authorities confiscated about 90,000 pounds in New York alone. Since then, Mr. Gilbride said, the amount of khat seized has declined slightly.
Arrests and seizures of khat in several Cobble Hill cafes six years ago put an end to the leaves’ ready accessibility, said the men on the sidewalk.
Efforts to eradicate the drug have also made it more expensive. In New York, the price of khat has perhaps doubled in the last five years, buyers and sellers said.
“I work for a day, and then I can buy it,” said Adeel Abdul, 24, an employee of a deli in Harlem. Even then, he said, “it’s expensive, and it’s not good.”
A bunch of fresh leaves — usually 10 to 12 stems — costs about $50. But fresh leaves are the hardest to come by. Far more common are the dried leaves, some of which are imported not from East Africa or Yemen but from Guyana, in South America. The dried variety, considered inferior, is dampened with water or tea and then chewed.
A writer, Kevin Rushby, described the effects of khat in his book “Eating the Flowers of Paradise” (Palgrave Macmillan, 1999). “No rush,” he wrote, “just a silky transition, scarcely noticed, and then the room casts loose its moorings.”
But Hamud Alsilwi, the principal of an Islamic school in Yonkers, said that it was an ugly habit — “like animals chewing grass” — and an unwelcome diversion. “It’s illegal,” he said, “and they waste time, and they waste money.”
Kate Hammer contributed reporting for this article.
Maki
interesting article…. Maki…
the quoted book looks interresting too btu the author is not an expert on the matter… jus another white man telling us how we shoudl live…
chat to me is a drug that should not be eaten all day erday the taxi drivers in et practilly live on suqa and chat i think that it should be made illegal all over the world its way to eay to get addicted
HI
Personally, anything that have some sort of emotional or physical influence on ppl should be banned. Gin I know that means banning things like coca cola and coffee as well. The issue with chat is its time consuming and is related with lots of rituals. it also makes ppl hallucinate.
Its very addictive that ones a delay of an Ethiopian flight deleivering kaht to Djibouti caused a public demonstration.
Well, the practice in Addis is out of control.There are places like ”Chat Brothels”.Lots of kids consume it as well.
The british government recently decriminalized chat ,If I am not mistaken.
There is legal drug and illegal drug. Where and how do you draw the line? The difference between the two isn’t even clear. Like ritalin, a prescription drug, is really cocaine. Go to your doctor and blow up your minor depression and fatigue, lack of focus… what have you, and bingo, you can get cocaine.
Winta:
Interesting point… should we add Religion to this list as well? I mean it’s also time consuming and is related with lots of rituals. It also makes ppl hallucinate (Check out the Pente or Baptist dances - people possessed by the “spirit”.