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• n  the leaves of the shrub Catha edulis which are chewed like tobacco or used to make tea; has the effect of a euphoric stimulant

• Once largely a social pastime, the ancient practice of chewing khat is taking on troubling dimensions.
• We see wily corsairs in ragged clothing swarming out of their elusive mother ships, chewing narcotic khat while thumbing GPS phones and grappling hooks.
• Never mind the social effects of an entire nation addled by the narcotic leaf khat, growing the plant could leave the country short of drinking water.

• kat
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• Arabian tea
• African tea

News & Articles

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• Kansas City Man Indicted for Distributing Khat
  A Kansas City, MO man has been indicted by a federal grand jury for distributing cathinone, a controlled substance found in graba, a dried form of khat.
  June 21, 2013 - Kansas City InfoZine

Quotes

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• Ali Mohammed in Reuters South Africa
  We don't want the khat to be stopped, we don't want an al Shabaab administration,demonstrator Ali Mohamed told Reuters.
• Sharif Sheik Ahmed in BBC News
  From today onwards we have banned khat in the areas we control,Mr Ahmed said. "Dealers found in possession of khat will pay 7 million Somali shillings ($5,000) and the khat will be burned. This substance is badly influencing our people."
• Ali Abdullah Saleh in Bloomberg
  Khat is the whiskey of Yemen,said Saleh Amid Qalan, a 32-year-old government employee, standing in a passage next to the seventh century Great Mosque, the country's oldest.