When I was in Somaliland, I bribed multiple police officers with bags of drugs.
Bold opener, I know.
But it’s true.
It was the only way they’d let me go to a place that's unsafe without protection.
And the thing is, I had protection.
That morning, I’d hired a cop with an AK-47 to go around with us all day.
But the moment that he realized that all day filming also meant all day without drugs, he bounced.
And by bounced, I mean quite literally leapt out of our moving vehicle onto the highway.
The thing is, that cop is not abnormal.
He’s addicted to a drug that virtually everyone in the country I met is addicted to.
They call it khat, and it is one of the most popular drugs on Earth.
There are so many interesting things to say about khat, I kind of feel like the actual usage
is the least compelling part.
But if the millions of views on Vice videos has taught me anything, it’s that there is a lot of people out there
who are just clicking on this to see some firsthand experience of drug use.
So let's get that out of the way early.
So we tried khat.
It was… ok.
My whole crew tried it, and none of us really enjoyed it.
It’s a mild stimulant, makes you feel a bit more amped up.
You talk more.
You’re jittery.
It rots your teeth.
But not much else.
It’s not quite amphetamines, but it’s a bit stronger than coffee.
Similar to chewing a coca leaf, I s’pose.
But certainly not cocaine.
To anyone experienced with illicit substances, it barely even feels like a drug.
Yet, powerful or not, here in East Africa, khat is everywhere.
And I mean, everywhere.
Every market has a stall, every street corner has an addict.
Here in Harar, where some of the highest quality khat is grown, the mountainsides are covered in farms.
In Somaliland, if you meet five people on an average day, at least three of them would be chewing while you spoke.
Like cows in a field, most of them are happy to just spend four to six hours every day
chewing their cud.
Big, fat cheeks full of bitter, bad tasting leaves.
And the point of today’s video is to talk about why.
In a region where going against Islam can easily lead to your death, and where the very of concept of drugs
are forbidden by religious law, how did this one slip through the cracks?
And more than that, if it’s worth going against Islam for, in Somalia of all places,
how hasn’t it caught on elsewhere?
Now, I’m not an Islamic scholar by any stretch of the imagination, but as far as I’ve been made to understand
the Quran forbids any substance that impairs judgement or negatively affects behaviour.
In essence, anything that harms the health that Allah naturally provided you is haram.
Forbidden.
With certain drugs, such as alcohol, marijuana, and opioids,
impairment is a very clear side effect of the drug.
Drowsiness is like impairment’s visual aid.
It's a really hard ban for Muslims to argue against.
Although, that is not to say that some haven’t tried, of course they have.
Drugs have that effect on people.
It's just that they’ve had no success.
However, with stimulants, it’s an easier argument to make.
I’m not convinced by it, personally, but I do understand the logic.
After all, is your judgement impaired when you drink a coffee?
What about smoking tobacco?
It kind of depends on how you define impairment, really.
Certainly they’re changing your body chemistry in a statistically negative way,
but that’s a hard thing to pin down.
If willingly harming yourself with tobacco is forbidden because of its potential to harm your health,
then what about knowingly drinking filthy water?
What about chemotherapy, or most medicines that have a side effect?
What about vaccinations, or for that matter, not getting vaccinations?
To me, it’s really hard to imagine that anyone chewing khat doesn’t realize
that they’re being impaired.
Of course they are.
We had a cop literally jump out of a moving vehicle just so he could keep chewing.
That doesn’t sound like someone acting with their own best interests in mind.
But the reality is that there always tends to be wiggle room.
In practice, religion is predicated on the back of human behaviour, not vice-versa.
Ultimately, we’re the ones enforcing the rules.
Khat thrives not because Islam approves, but because the community does.
It’s been a major part of Yemeni culture for at least five hundred years.
Longer for the Somali.
When most people are making an argument for khat in Islam, they’re less focused on the Quran
and more focused on the society.
Despite what some of its proponents will claim, the success of khat in the Red Sea has
nothing to do with the Islamic religion.
If it did, chances are it would be everywhere, like coffee.
But most countries have made it illegal, Muslim or not.
To put it another way, both Saudi Arabia and Mecca consider khat haram.
So if people are willing to defy that form of authority, they’re doing so for a reason.
And that reason, as far as I see it, is nothing more complicated than the fact
that humans desire drugs, and this is the drug that was there.
Once we found a use for it, we developed a dependence.
Entire societies have developed a dependence.
So, the question remains: if it’s important enough to defy Mecca over,
why isn’t it more popular?
Why have opioids taken the world by storm, when khat has remained so relatively regional?
Obviously, I’m no expert on this subject either, but as far as I can tell there are two answers.
The first is that prohibition works, but only if nobody wants what’s being prohibited.
In the Red Sea region, a combination of religious and agricultural factors means
that virtually the only legal drug available, not counting coffee, is khat.
With almost every other illicit substance declared haram, khat is king by default.
It isn’t that it has the stronger high, the lowest price, or produces the most euphoric effects.
It’s just that its available.
You can get it here.
In other countries, drugs tend to be much stronger, and take much less effort.
The average person here chews khat for over four hours a day.
And what’s more, they need it to be essentially fresh off the vine, so to speak.
Khat has a shelf-life of forty eight hours, and every hour spent in transit lessens the high.
For people of other countries to get the full effect, it’s virtually imperative that they farm it themselves.
And without a natural user base, there’s little reason for illegal growers to try.
On top of that, the real problem arises.
And from my personal point of view this is by far the most important.
It’s nearly impossible to refine khat into a more powerful substance.
The active ingredient that intoxicates the chewer is notoriously difficult to isolate into other forms.
Where coca leaves can become cocaine and poppies can become oxycontin, khat is pretty much just khat.
In small cases they’ve found a way to change it into pillform, but for those countries
that already produce amphetamines, it’s weaker, more expensive, and harder to make.
And conversely, for people who chew khat, taking a pill kind of removes the positives of the ritual.
The main reason to chew khat is that it’s the easy, available drug.
There are no better alternatives, no better method of socializing.
But once you start, it’s hard not to fall into the ritual.
Like smoking marijuana or drinking a cup of coffee, for many users most of the fun is in the act,
rather than the effect.
Chewing gives you a reason to sit with friends.
It inspires you to act out.
It helps pass an otherwise difficult day.
So yeah, okay, khat is not the best drug.
It rots your teeth, hurts your brain, harms your society and defies Islam.
But no matter what I say about it, here in the Horn of Africa, it’s not going anywhere.
This is Rare Earth.
Show me the best ones! Thanks, man.