Kettering University, Liberal Studies, 1700 University Ave, Flint, MI 48504, USA.
J Ethnopharmacol. 2010 Dec 1;132(3):607-14. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2010.01.063. Epub 2010 Mar 19.
This article looks at the history of the expansion of khat consumption from the traditional chew regions to Western countries and assesses the implication of possible international control for its use and trade in the Horn of Africa.
Ten months of initial field work in Ethiopia, three follow up field work, archival work in Ethiopia and Europe, as well as study of available relevant literature.
The debut of khat in the West in the 1980s was initially greeted with disdain and indifference. Authorities dismissed it on grounds that the mode of consumption, chewing the leaves for an extended period of time to extract a miniscule amount of the active ingredient, would not be appealing to Western users. Following the Mogadishu debacle of 1993, as depicted in the movie Black Hawk Down, authorities in the West began to express concern that khat was a new drug of abuse. Its trade was increasingly linked with terrorism because of its association with immigrants from the traditional khat use countries in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Amid hysteria and moral panic, many Western countries classified khat as a highly potent controlled substance, rendering its possession, cultivation, and trade illegal.
This article argues that more and more Western governments, out of panic rather than definitive evidence of harm, will be instituting national laws banning the leaves, but khat will not be placed under international control because the scientific evidence of harm is unlikely to rise to a critical mass that would justify its illegalization. States in the source countries would continue to tolerate khat because banning it would be disastrous from an economic and social welfare standpoint. Because of its ambiguous legal position and the unstable nature of its active ingredient, cathinone, khat would not be successfully commoditized as a global commodity or transformed into a highly concentrated illicit drug. In this situation, khat would continue to be chewed in the traditional-use areas of the Red Sea littoral marketed by local syndicates who work with a large network of petty commodity traders.
本文探讨了卡特叶消费从传统咀嚼地区向西方国家扩张的历史，并评估了对其在非洲之角的使用和贸易实施可能的国际管制的影响。
在埃塞俄比亚进行了十个月的初步实地考察，三次后续实地考察，在埃塞俄比亚和欧洲进行档案工作，并研究了现有相关文献。
卡特叶在 20 世纪 80 年代首次在西方出现时，最初遭到了不屑和漠不关心的对待。当局以消费方式为由将其驳回，即长时间咀嚼叶子以提取微量的有效成分，这对西方用户来说不会有吸引力。1993 年摩加迪沙灾难（电影《黑鹰坠落》中有所描绘）之后，西方当局开始表示担心卡特叶是一种新的滥用药物。由于与来自非洲之角和阿拉伯半岛传统卡特叶使用国家的移民有关，其贸易与恐怖主义日益相关。在歇斯底里和道德恐慌中，许多西方国家将卡特叶归类为高度有效力的受控物质，使拥有、种植和交易非法。
本文认为，越来越多的西方国家政府出于恐慌而非确凿的危害证据，将制定禁止叶片的国家法律，但由于危害的科学证据不太可能达到足以将其非法化的临界质量，卡特叶不会受到国际管制。来源国的国家将继续容忍卡特叶，因为从经济和社会福利的角度来看，禁止它将是灾难性的。由于其法律地位模糊以及其活性成分卡西酮的不稳定性质，卡特叶不可能成功地作为全球商品商品化，也不可能转化为高度浓缩的非法药物。在这种情况下，卡特叶将继续在红海沿岸的传统咀嚼地区被咀嚼，由与庞大的小宗商品交易商网络合作的地方辛迪加营销。
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