A User’s Guide To Qat, The Grossest Drug In The World
Who wants to look like an obese chipmunk with a mouth full of green, slobbery cancer? No wonder there’s a movement afoot in Yemen to end this rather off-putting practice.
1. Qat (pronounced “cut”), also known a Khat or Gat, is a plant that’s been chewed for centuries in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Penninsula.
2. Qat is a stimulant with amphetimine-like properties that can induce hyperactivity and euphoria.
3. Although Qat can lead to dependency and abuse, it is not considered as addictive as alcohol or nicotine.
4. Qat is best chewed fresh from the farm. Dried Qat isn’t nearly as powerful. Vendors will sell Qat with peanuts or bubble gum to make chewing the raw leaves and stems more palatable.
5. Qat is widely regarded to taste terrible. It is always described as sour. Since it is an evergreen shrub, chewing Qat is frequently likened to chewing pine needles.
6. Qat can lead to loss of appetitie, depression, hallucinations, psychosis, ulcers, constipation, hemorrhoids, strokes and heart attacks.
7. Qat can also lead to oral and throat cancer.
8. Qat is chewed by an estimated 10 million people every day, but mostly in Africa and the Middle East. Qat is illegal in most of the western world, including the United States.
9. Qat is especially prevalent in Yemen, where it is chewed by 70–80% of Yemenis between 16 and 50 years old.
10. Qat is primarily a male pastime in Yemen. Qat chewing among women is frowned upon.
11. It is estimated that Yemenis spend about 14.6 million hours a day chewing qat.
12. Activists are concerned qat is stifling the potential of Yemen. Poor families spend half their yearly income on qat, the unemployed chew qat up to 8 hours a day and hospitals are filled with qat addicts suffering from cancer and infections.
13. Qat farming and production is dominated by Yemen’s tribal leaders, politicians and military officers.
14. Qat production also consumes most of Yemen’s resources. An estimated 40% of Yemen’s dwindling water supply goes to qat farming. As a result, the Yemeni capital of Sanaa is expected to be the first major city in the world to run out of water.
15. And lest we forget, this is what you look like when you chew qat.
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- vikka thinks A User's Guide To Qat, The Grosse... is Fail & Ew
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ssb062000 a year agoWhile this is gross(mostly because of the social and medical implications)…I wouldn’t venture to call it the “grossest drug in the world” …if you’re grossed out by chewing leaves (ever eat a salad?) but not the idea of injecting a dirty needle in your arm, or cooking some home-brewed chemical concoction in a spoon…then there’s something off with you.
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Mock Turtle a year ago“It is estimated that Yemenis spend about 14.6 million hours a day chewing qat.” I’d love to know how that is possible.
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Murphytheyeti a year agois their an etiquette to to Qat because most of these guys seem to be chewing on the left side of there face holes.
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michaelm60 a year agoIt’s also a great for Scrabble (or Words with Friends… you philistines), because it lets you play your “Q” even if you don’t have a “U”
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tony03 a year ago
I’ve been around qat all my life and some of those pictures are not representative of what mouths look like while chewing qat. Most people are pros at it and they know how to chew it in a way where it is kept to one side and doesn’t spread all over the mouth as seen in some of these pictures. The post also failed to mention that chewing qat increases the saliva in your mouth and most people spit it out into specially made spit bowls or empty water bottles, paper cups, etc. But some people actually swallow it. Also, in Saudi Arabia it is considered a recreational drug and is therefore illegal to chew qat there.
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ninjapornstar a year ago
Khat is actually a really, really interesting drug. As it’s chewed fresh, it is only used in regions where it is grown or within a reasonable transport range. Too much travel time and it goes bad, which is why you’ve never heard of it outside of the horn of Africa. It is also responsible for one hell of an entertaining Esquire article.
“High in Hell,” by Kevin Fedarko (Esquire, 9/1/2006)
http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0906KHAT_182 “Stacked on the deck of the fuselage on the other side of a thick metal door just behind Vincent’s navigation desk sits a mountain of white bags, each the size of a stuffed pillowcase. This is the afternoon’s shipment of khat, a psychotropic shrub that provides the overwhelming majority of Djiboutian men with their daily drug fix. Which means that having just vaulted over the Furthest Shag of the Never Whatever, you’re seconds away from landing next to a war base bristling with irritable jarheads, accompanied by twenty-two thousand pounds of a Schedule 1 amphetamine that, back in the U.S., carries the same penalties for large-scale trafficking — up to life in prison — as heroin, meth, or cocaine. Jesus, you wonder, could anything be weirder than this? Why, yes. And damned if it isn’t unfolding on the tarmac right now, where a mob of ragged-looking dudes wearing sarongs is sprinting across the runway toward the plane. The good news is that these men seem to be unarmed. The bad news is that they look really pissed off.” -
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