Things have khat out of control in Yemen

Today I found a new source of blog inspiration: The Alaska Dispatch. A big thank you to Sarah Palin's local news service for running a Yemen story that doesn't feature al-Qaeda. Instead, the Alaska Dispatch article subject, and the subject of this blog post is Khat, aka Qat or Gat.

Khat is a mildly narcotic plant. Yemenis purchase branches of Khat leaves on a daily basis and throughout the course of an afternoon pull the leaves from the stem one by one, chew each leaf lightly (enough to break the leaf's surface but not enough to split the leaf fully in two) before storing the leaf in their cheek. Little by little a golf-ball sized collection of Khat leaves begins to form in the cheek of the chewer. The chewer will continue to add leaves and increase the size of the ball until their cheek has reached it's stretch limit (or until they have had enough, although when I was in Yemen it seemed this coincided with the cheek's stretch limit!). The chewer then sits with this large clump of slightly mashed khat leaves stored in their cheek (as demonstrated  by the unknown man in the image on the right) before removing the clump, binning it and heading to bed. When I was in Yemen in 2007 I observed that khat chewing usually started around 1500hrs and finished late on into the evening.

Khat sounds harmless enough. Its narcotic effect is mild and it's not officially classified as a drug. Rumour has it that Yemenia, Yemen's national airline, used to serve it to passengers. During a visit to Yemen in 2007 I tried khat on two occasions: the first time I bit too hard, split the leaves into multiple pieces and swallowed the lot, a beginners error which my digestive system particularly regretted the following day. On the second occasion I successfully stored the leaves in my cheek like the man in the picture with the only notable side effects being mild insomnia juxtaposed with slight lethargy and a very sore cheek.

But khat has more sinister, non-biological side effects. Daily khat chewing reduces productivity amongst what should be the country's active working population. Khat chewing is a social custom and workforce output levels reduce dramatically once the khat leaves are brought out mid afternoon. On top of this, good quality khat comes at a premium and Yemeni families often spend more money each week on khat than they do on food.

The final negative impact of khat is discussed in the Alaska Dispatch article that inspired this blog post. Yemen is currently experiencing water shortages. Khat growing not only takes up valuable arable land but is also a thirsty crop and is estimated to consume 40% of the country's water resources. Due to its premium price, more and more farmers are converting their land to khat growing, sacrificing increasingly valuable fruit and vegetable production which is subsequently causing rising food costs. As a non-chewing outsider, it is clear that this khat obsession needs to be tempered.

I recently read about a twitter campaign to wean Yemen off this leaf. A short summary says the campaign has not made much progress. In short, it seems leaf chewing has khat out of control (excuse this lame quasi-pun!). But seriously, if the country really is bent on removing al-Qaeda from its midst I doubt it will do it whilst high on a mild narcotic leaf.

If Yemen is to move into the future, I think it's time to leave the khat leaf in the past.