By Isaiah Thompson, citypaper.net
Last week, the Philadelphia office for U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued a proud statement to the press: Agents at a special mail facility in Philly had identified and seized 63 pounds of khat, a “leafy plant … that contains an amphetamine-like stimulant.” The press release included a picture of the khat (pronounced “cot” or sometimes “chot”), poking up out of a box.
Khat — sometimes written, as Scrabble players know, as “qat” — is a leafy shrub cultivated in the Arabian Peninsula and East Africa. The leaves can be boiled into a tea, but mostly it’s chewed. Fresh leaves are essential, because they contain the chemical cathonine, which has been illegal in the United States since 1993, when the Drug Enforcement Administration placed it on its list of Schedule 1 narcotics, in such ignoble company as PCP, Ecstasy and LSD. The cathonine is present only in fresh leaves, however; dried khat contains only cathine, a milder stimulant.
Once khat is intercepted, it’s the job of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to find out where it’s going. Whether ICE will actually follow the khat trail, however, isn’t clear. The agency didn’t respond to requests for comment on last week’s case, but when CBP seized 72 pounds of khat this past April, a spokesperson for ICE told the Inquirer that the agency “declined to pursue the intended recipients.”
Indeed, the war on khat seems to be mostly a cold one — especially in Philly.
Last year, CBP seized 2.5 tons of khat coming into Philly; they’ve found more than 800 pounds so far this year. Authorities agree that the plant is chiefly consumed by immigrants from countries where it’s still common and legal, primarily Yemen, Ethiopia and Somalia. Philly, according to CBP spokesman Steve Sapp, is a khat distribution hub.
And yet, last September, when Philadelphia Police raided a house in East Falls and found 740 pounds of khat there, no one was charged, says Deputy Commissioner William Blackburn. In fact, Cathie Abookire, spokeswoman for the District Attorney, confirms that the DA has never prosecuted anyone for using or selling khat.
“But [Lynne Abraham] is very, very well aware of the drug … and its power,” she says.
Statewide, only two khat cases have resulted in sentencing. And two years ago, when the DEA conducted the highest-profile khat bust ever, charging 44 people in New York and Seattle with trafficking, only three were convicted. Of those, one got off with a year.
Blackburn says he just doesn’t think there’s much khat around. “I haven’t come across it in any of our raids.”
Maybe there just isn’t much khat in Philly. Or maybe — unlike with some other substances — officials are just treating khat like the threat to the public well-being it isn’t.
Over a couple of Heinekens at the Abyssinia Ethiopian Restaurant in West Philly, Wondi and Tesfaye, two well-dressed Ethiopian-American men in their early 30s, look more bored than suspicious when asked about khat.
Sure, they know about it, they say. Plenty of people in Philadelphia chew it. Both men say they no longer do — but with as little vehemence as if saying they no longer do Jägerbombs.
“It makes you feel a little excited, ” Tesfaye says, shrugging.
“At home, nobody calls it a drug,” Wondi explains.
Tesfaye agrees: “In Germany, they drink beer with breakfast,” he says. “You tell Germans it’s a drug, and they tell you you’re crazy.”
There is no global consensus about khat. While some people have defended it as a cultural heritage, Yemeni officials fear that khat is replacing sustenance farming and draining the country of water resources. Some European countries where the plant is legal have considered banning it, fearing that heavy use is leading to mental health problems.
As for the U.S., both Wondi and Tesfaye say that while khat is present, there isn’t much of it. Anyway, they say, there’s a big distinction between khat and other drugs.
“You don’t see people chewing it all alone like this,” Wondi says, hunching over and pretending to smoke a crack pipe. Tesfaye starts chuckling. They laugh about it for a while.