What is khat

Like drink-driving, driving when high is dangerous and illegal. If the police catch people supplying illegal drugs in a home, club, bar or hostel, they can potentially prosecute the landlord, club owner or any other person concerned in the management of the premises.

If you or someone else needs urgent help after taking drugs or drinking, call for an ambulance. Tell the crew everything you know. It could save their life. Khat A leafy green plant containing stimulant drugs.

How it looks, tastes and smells What does it look like? How do people take it? Khat abuse causes psychological dependence, and chronic abuse can lead to behavioral changes and mental health impairment. Clinical symptoms include manic behavior with grandiose delusions, violence, suicidal depression, and schizophreniform psychosis characterized by paranoid delusions.

Chronic abuse can also produce physical exhaustion, anorexia, periodontal disease, and gastrointestinal illness. There is no licit use for khat in the United States. Once the plant is harvested, cathinone levels begin to decline; cooling the cut plant material reduces the rate of decline. In dried or dehydrated khat, also known as Graba, cathinone may be detected for many months or even years. Cathine, which is about 10 times less potent than cathinone, remains stable in khat after the plant has been harvested.

Khat samples in which any level of cathinone is found by chemical analysis are treated as Schedule I plant material. Khat samples in which only cathine is detectable by chemical analysis are treated as Schedule IV plant material.

Schedule I drugs under the Controlled Substances Act CSA are classified as having a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug under medical supervision. Path2Help Not sure what you are looking for? Find out more. See also, drugs and the law. A review of the history, cultivation, chemistry, pharmacology and adverse health effects of khat.

International Journal of Applied and Natural Sciences. Qatar Medical Journal. Basker G. The plant Catha edulis contains two alkaloids, cathinone and cathine, which act as stimulants. Users simply chew the green khat leaves, keeping a ball of partially chewed leaves against the inside of their cheek not unlike chewing tobacco.

The dried leaves can also be used in this way, though they have less potency. Some khat users also smoke the drug, make it into tea or sprinkle it on food.

Use of khat has been a tradition for centuries throughout Somalia, Yemen and Ethiopia, where khat cafes "mafrishes" are often found. Khat leaves are chewed by students before exams, in the morning before work or at social gatherings, according to the Los Angeles Times. The effects of khat also known as qat, qaad, Arabian tea, kat and chat are similar to those of other amphetamines, according to authorities like the Drug Enforcement Administration.