Global Ganja Report

Yemen's opposition has repeatedly drawn tens of thousands to the streets to protest against President Ali Abdullah Saleh's three decades of autocratic rule in recent weeks, but by noon the protesters quietly vanish. Many head straight to the souk, or market, to buy bags of khat, the stimulant leaf that over half of Yemen's 23 million people chew daily. Some activists maintain, however, that khat serves as a social lubricant that helps fuel the opposition movement.

Officials in Georgia's Bartow County said one person was arrested after they seized $250,000 worth of what local news accounts called a "rare drug" during a traffic stop on Interstate 75. Bartow-Cartersville Drug Task Force officials identified the substance as khat, a leaf chewed as a mild stimulant in the Horn of Africa and parts of the Middle East.

The DEA is said to be preparing a new crackdown on khat, the mildly psychoactive leaf grown in Yemen and the Horn of Africa, in response to a boom in domestic demand as more Somali, Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants arrive in the US. In a joint raid with local police, US Customs and Border Patrol intercepted a 22-pound package of the leaf in Wisconsin's La Crosse County March 13. It was apparently bound for the Twin Cities area. (La Crosse Tribune, March 13)