Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

UK government to ban herbal stimulant khat
Associated Press ^ | Jul 3, 2013 8:58 AM EDT

Posted on 07/03/2013 6:09:28 AM PDT by Olog-hai

The British government says it is banning khat, an herbal stimulant, despite advice against such a move by an official advisory body.

Khat, also known as cathonine, is popular in parts of the Middle East and Africa, where users chew the leaf to release stimulants that produce a mild high. …

(Excerpt) Read more at hosted.ap.org ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: cathonine; khat; khatban; warondrugs

1 posted on 07/03/2013 6:09:28 AM PDT by Olog-hai
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

It seems to be one of the things that keeps Somali muslims rabid for days on end.


2 posted on 07/03/2013 6:11:08 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek

Several years ago there was a news report on how all fighting in Somalia stopped when it was time for plane loads of khat to come in. After the planes were unloaded, fighting started again.

They love their khat.


3 posted on 07/03/2013 6:14:42 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need 7+ more ammo. LOTS MORE.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Nature’s meth.


4 posted on 07/03/2013 6:16:57 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek
.......that produce a mild high. …

Ha! It turns entire populations into drooling, lethargic fools, who may then stir themselves briefly into suddenly spasmic violent paranoiac episodes. Then they lapse back into semi-coma.

It has quite literally ruined entire nation's of un-Worthy Oriental Gentlemen. Ban it? They should should shoot out of hand anyone who tries to introduce it to Britain.

How, I wonder, are our British cousins doing on their attempt to stop the smuggling of "Bush Meat," including monkey into the country?

5 posted on 07/03/2013 6:18:25 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk ("Obama" The Movie. Introducing Reggie Love as "Monica." .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Ruy Dias de Bivar

Break me off a piece of that Kit Khat!


6 posted on 07/03/2013 6:23:49 AM PDT by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: cripplecreek

And we have a cocaine problem, something that is chewed in South America.

Now, what if some enterprising chemist finds a way to concentrate the substance in khat, and people start sniffing it.


7 posted on 07/03/2013 6:25:48 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar (Sometimes you need 7+ more ammo. LOTS MORE.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

I first heard of khat from Nelson DeMille...highly recommend any one of his novels. DeMille is a fantastic storyteller, highly entertaining with a lot of humor mixed in.


8 posted on 07/03/2013 6:26:19 AM PDT by Mich Patriot (PITCH BLACK is the new "transparent")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: jmacusa

ooooo!

Kit Khat crackers?

Creepy!


9 posted on 07/03/2013 6:37:12 AM PDT by Cletus.D.Yokel (Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alteration: The acronym explains the science.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
FYI, I have been told that the way the natives of the Andes regions use coca leaves actually releases very little "cocaine" like the refined product available on a street near you. Chewed with lime (the mineral not the fruit), it does release a host of other narcotic and non-narcotic compounds that have the effect of enabling them to work at extremely high altitudes on little food.

Oddly enough, it is also apparently a vitamin source for them!

10 posted on 07/03/2013 6:37:46 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk ("Obama" The Movie. Introducing Reggie Love as "Monica." .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai
In Yemen all business deals are conducted with khat. They get the business part over as quick as possible just to get to the khat chewing part.
11 posted on 07/03/2013 6:43:04 AM PDT by Hillarys Gate Cult (Liberals make unrealistic demands on reality and reality doesn't oblige them.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Kenny Bunk

Leave it to the Urban Ferals of America’s Big Sh*ty habitats to find evil uses for a plant used by the South American indigenous for umpteen centuries.

The Indigenous benefited from their use of cocaine. The Urban Ferals managed to discover destructive uses for the same plant product.

From the above, what can one conclude?

Note that both have a culture of cannibalism in their past.

Who is the savage, who is ‘civilized’?

Lastly, whose habitat is the most dangerous today?


12 posted on 07/03/2013 6:48:48 AM PDT by GladesGuru (Islam is antithetical to, and Islam is irreconcilable with, America. Therefore - Islam Delenda Est)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: GladesGuru
Purified cocaine was rather quickly invented by the Spaniards after their conquest of the Incas, as was quinine, and a host of other "organic" herbal medications.

It was a normal part of the pharmacopeia for 3 centuries, and abused by some that whole time. But it really took off in the US in the 20thC. If you'll recall, Jimmy Carter's Surgeon General thought it a harmless, nay beneficial recreational drug! Freud and Sherlock Holmes shot it up!

Mass marketed to the lower classes, and popular with those of more affluent means, it has become the multi-billion-dollar drug of choice from the ghetto to the McMansions on the hill

Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin_Mariani

13 posted on 07/03/2013 7:00:29 AM PDT by Kenny Bunk ("Obama" The Movie. Introducing Reggie Love as "Monica." .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Olog-hai

I’m not impressed by there being any real problem with Khat worse than what banning it would cause. Basically, it is a mild antidepressant and very mild tranquilizer. As such, it is far milder than most prescription drugs for the same purposes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khat

Since it seems that only the politicians, not the drug control scientists or experts, want it banned, that it is yet another government petty oppression.

“We want it banned because it gives some people pleasure without concomitant pain. And we get no money out of the deal.”


14 posted on 07/03/2013 9:46:50 AM PDT by yefragetuwrabrumuy (Best WoT news at rantburg.com)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: yefragetuwrabrumuy
Basically, it is a mild antidepressant and very mild tranquilizer. As such, it is far milder than most prescription drugs for the same purposes.

Perhaps true in low dose, but lemme tellya, in Somalia and Yemen, I have personally seen how it totally zombifies large numbers of the population. Not to mention making them look like drooling somnolent fools, sleeping off the " mild antidepressant and very mild tranquilizer" in the gutter, with red ooze coming from their stained lips.

It is also very habit forming, if you deprive the Worthy Oriental Gentlemen of it, they get even nastier than their normal truculent selves.

Not a good import.

15 posted on 07/03/2013 6:33:09 PM PDT by Kenny Bunk ("Obama" The Movie. Introducing Reggie Love as "Monica." .)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: Kenny Bunk

Khat is what the somali pirates use. The actually take it aboard the hijacked ships and consume it all day.


16 posted on 07/03/2013 6:45:42 PM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE! http://www.senate.gov and http://www.house.gov)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson