Is Miraa a Drug?: Categorizing Kenyan Khat

Abstract

This article examines the varied perceptions of the substance miraa/khat in Kenya, from strong approval in the Nyambene Hills region where it is cultivated to the strong disapproval evident in its frequent denunciation in various segments of Kenyan society. Perceptions are colored by various local and global discourses, and it is argued that of great importance is “war on drugs” rhetoric, which allows the conflation of miraa with other substances also termed “drugs”; much of the Kenyan miraa debate revolves around just how miraa should be categorized and to whether it can be labeled a “drug.” War-on-drugs rhetoric is countered by those more enamored of the substance by discourse in which its use is labeled “traditional,” “cool,” and an “economic miracle.”

Keywords:

• Khat
• miraa
• substance use
• Kenya

Introduction

A wide variety of psychoactive substances—legal and illegal—are consumed in Kenya: millet and honey-based alcoholic brews that have been consumed for centuries now coexist with the products of large-scale breweries (Willis, 2002); cannabis (known popularly as bhangi) is widely grown and smoked; the sight of street children inhaling glue and other solvents is common in larger towns and cities; and even heroin is smoked and injected, especially in coastal towns (Beckerleg, 1995).¹ Such consumption has generated alarm, apparent most notably in the campaigning of NACADA: the National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse, a parastatal organization formed in 2001. On their Web site² it is stated that substance abuse ranks “alongside poverty, corruption and HIV/AIDS” as a major problem afflicting Kenyan society, and they make much use of press releases to warn that drug and alcohol consumption is on the increase and leading to crisis. One of the “drugs” they target is miraa, the Kenyan name for the substance more commonly known as khat, and the subject of this article. I was often asked the question posed in the title to this article during my spells of fieldwork in Kenya, upon telling people that I was researching miraa. Of course, as miraa contains central nervous system stimulants in the form of alkaloids cathinone and cathine (among others), it is certainly a psychoactive substance and hence a “drug.” However, the term had more import than this, going beyond such definitions of drugs as “any substances that alter structure or function in living organisms” (Krivanek, 1982, p. 16): its usage carried allusions to substances like cocaine and all that they are associated with. Indeed, the initial question, “Is miraa a drug?” was often followed up with “like cocaine?”. Although miraa is legal in Kenya—and a commodity of great value to the country's economy through its international trade—quite how it should be viewed is a moot point. The benefits and risks of the substance are debated throughout Kenyan society: in parliament, in the media, and among the wider population. Some praise it as a “traditional” substance that does little harm to consumers while being of great economic benefit, and some praise it as poa, a word used by youth in Kenya in the colloquial sense of “cool”; on the other hand, others—including NACADA—link it with all sorts of economic, social, and health-related ills, and there are frequent calls for its prohibition.

This article³ explores the wide range of perceptions encompassed by the Kenyan miraa debate and suggests that the debate hinges on how to categorize this controversial substance: as drug, as haram (forbidden to Muslims) or halal (permissible to Muslims) as “green gold,” as part of“traditional culture,” or as poa. All of these labels can influence perceptions of the substance,⁴ encapsulating and encouraging approval or disapproval. In particular, the term drug is powerful, and those who see miraa as harming consumers and society can derive much rhetorical force from using the language of the “war on drugs.” Hence, the importance of the question “Is miraa a drug?” and hence the desire of those who support the substance and its use to avoid the term and differentiate miraa chewing from, rather than conflate it with, consumption of other drugs: this theme of differentiating miraa from other psychoactive substances forms the final section of this article. However, before looking at the Kenyan miraa debate and categories used to describe the substance, I first offer a brief introduction to Kenyan miraa.

Miraa

Miraa is the most commonly used name in Kenya for the stimulant leaves and stems of Catha edulis (Forsk), a tree indigenous to much of Africa, and cultivated—either in the form of a tree or of a shrub—throughout east Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It is strongly associated with Yemen, where the qat session has become an important social institution (Kennedy, 1987; Weir, 1985), and also with Somalis, whose fondness for the substance has led to a lucrative trade serving both Somalia and the Somali Diaspora. Much miraa is cultivated and consumed in Ethiopia (Gebissa, 2004), as well as in Kenya.⁵ Its legality varies from country to country, being legal in Kenya, Ethiopia, and the United Kingdom, among others, but illegal in Tanzania, much of Europe, New Zealand, the United States, and Canada (though it is still frequently consumed in all these countries). In the UK there have been calls—often from Somalis themselves—for miraa to be banned, and a rather sensationalized image of this new drug threat has been spread through media reports and even by members of parliament. One Labour member of parliament in a parliamentary debate of January 18, 2005, labeled the substance “corrosive, vicious and pernicious,” reporting that those in the thrall of this “vile narcotic” chew all night then “come home in the morning, beat up the wife and try to sleep through the day” (Hansard, 2005, Column 774). However, such rhetoric failed to win out in the battle to criminalize miraa consumption in the UK: in January 2006, the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs recommended tackling the health and social problems associated with miraa through means other than criminalization, and the Home Office agreed.⁶

Miraa trees in Kenya grow wild in forests and are cultivated in various locations,⁷ the most important of which is the Nyambene Hills, a mountain range lying to the northeast of Mount Kenya. The Nyambenes are home to two subgroups of the Bantu-speaking Meru: the Tigania and Igembe.⁸ Members of both subgroups cultivate miraa, but it is the Igembe who cultivate it most intensively. The miraa trade evolved over the last century: an indigenous crop commercialized at a time when other Kenyan farmers were planting crops like coffee, viewed as “progressive,” thanks to their “importance for the settler economy and its connection with modern sector institutions” (Goldsmith, 1994, p. 75).⁹ Miraa is cultivated on smallholder plots and offers farmers a good return per acre in comparison with progressive crops like coffee and tea; one farmer mentioned in a United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (UNODCCP) report of 1999 reckoned that every shilling invested in tea brings a return of two shillings, whereas every shilling invested in miraa gives a return of four shillings (1999, p. 26). Farmers also appreciate the frequent harvests that miraa trees provide (every few weeks or so depending on the season), pointing out that income from crops like coffee is not only depressingly small but also comes in just one yearly payment. For the Tigania and Igembe, miraa is far more than a successful commodity, however; it is a tangible link to their ancestors who first cultivated it in the Nyambene Hills, a valued part of such important procedures as the negotiation of bride price, and a source of great pride (Carrier, 2007; Goldsmith, 1994, 1999).

An efficient network distributes miraa from the Nyambenes to feed both a large national market and an especially lucrative international market. Kenya's large population of ethnic Somalis have much control over the international trade, some now resident in Nyambene towns on account of the miraa trade (Carrier, 2007; Goldsmith, 1999). Somalis export the commodity to Somalia and the Diaspora in Europe and beyond.¹⁰ Somali control has created tension, as some Meru have viewed themselves as exploited; this tension was most evident in 1999, when a Tigania man who had started to trade miraa died in London. Suspicion that he had been poisoned by Somalis jealous of their monopoly led to clashes between Meru and Somali in the Nyambenes and in Nairobi (Goldsmith, 1999; Grignon, 1999). The tension periodically manifested itself in the following years (especially during 2002 when Meru held further demonstrations in the Nyambenes protesting against Somali control of the international trade) but seems to have diminished somewhat of late (Carrier, 2007). Despite the tension, Nyambene miraa is chewed by people from many different ethnic backgrounds in Kenya and by Somalis (and others) as far afield as Manchester and Toronto.¹¹ Miraa's stimulant properties are particularly appreciated in a work context by the likes of professional drivers, night watchmen, and students studying for exams, while also being popular recreationally: miraa appears to help consumers in whatever activity—or inactivity—they are engaged with at the time. Miraa is appreciated in both work and leisure contexts.¹²

Kenyan Perspectives on Khat

The Green Gold of the Tigania and Igembe

If one imagines a continuum of approval-ambivalence-disapproval toward miraa, one can be sure that on such a continuum the region with most convergence on approval would be the Nyambenes. There, the language used to label and categorize the crop is mainly positive: miraa is “green gold,” the economic bedrock of the district; it is also a traditional Meru crop, associated strongly with Tigania and Igembe identity. Miraa is a vital source of income in the Nyambenes, reckoned to earn billions of Kenyan shillings for farmers and traders in the district every year (see Carrier, 2003, 2005b; Goldsmith, 1999). Obviously, therefore, vested economic interests provide good reason for the Tigania and Igembe clans to give it their support. In terms of identity, the Meru are associated throughout Kenya with the substance as Tigania and Igembe miraa traders can be found in most corners of Kenya. The cultivation, trade, and consumption of miraa are intertwined with Nyambene history and cultural heritage, a point Tigania and Igembe emphasize when defending miraa against criticism that it is at the root of social ills.¹³ The oldest trees are called mbaine, the name of an old Meru generation set linked proverbially to the distant past, and such trees are regarded as producing the finest miraa (see Carrier, 2005a; Goldsmith, 1994). Tigania and Igembe people often emphasize that chewing miraa was once the sole preserve of the elders alone, while this claim might not necessarily reflect accurately earlier consumption patterns (see Carrier, 2005b), the substance certainly has a special link with the elders, and this does not appear diluted despite miraa's popularity with youth.

For Tigania and Igembe youth, miraa's “cool” (poa) status is significant (see Carrier, 2005b). It is a substance that roots them as Meru through its link with their ancestors while also linking them into a modern ethos—an ethos originating outside the Nyambenes—of poa-ness. Poa is a Kiswahili word meaning “cool” now incorporated in the youthful language of sheng, a mixture of Kiswahili, English, and other languages that infuriates Kiswahili purists in the way that Franglais infuriates the guardians of French linguistic purity. Young Meru men often use sheng in describing miraa and enjoy chewing while listening to the latest tunes; however, they also take pride in traditional practices involving miraa: a young Meru friend speaks wistfully of the day that atafunga ncoolo (“he will tie up an ncoolo bundle,” a special type of bundle used in bride price negotiations)¹⁴ and lovingly speaks of Nyambene legends and customs surrounding miraa.

Once when visiting Mutuati, a town in the Nyambenes where much miraa destined for shipment to Europe is sorted, I was shown a pile of miraa, packed up into bundles and awaiting transportation to Nairobi. The traders were pleased to inform me that the miraa was destined for London. That a commodity grown and consumed in their part of the world by their ancestors for centuries¹⁵ (unlike, say, introduced crops such as tea and coffee) is now desired in such far-flung places as London and is regarded as being poa is a source of pride. Tigania and Igembe approval of miraa is encapsulated in the title given by a teacher friend of mine from Mutuati to a draft version of a book he has written on miraa: Miraa: The Noble Plant. For him the role miraa played in paying for his education and that of his siblings makes it well worthy of the epithet “noble.” Tigania and Igembe are aware that miraa is viewed as controversial beyond the Nyambenes and are ever eager to counter negative assertions about it. That miraa puts children through education, puts food on Nyambene tables, and funds medical treatment means that much rhetorical ammunition is available to those arguing in its favor. Indeed, such rhetoric was even used on President Kenyatta: when the Kenyan government once threatened to impose restrictions on the miraa trade, Meru delegates brought mbaine miraa to President Kenyatta as they requested that the restrictions be forgotten about; they told him, “miraa clothes our children and pays their school fees” (Goldsmith, 1999, p. 17).¹⁶

However, it must be pointed out that Tigania and Igembe are aware that excessive miraa consumption is associated with problems, and there are those who abstain from chewing altogether.¹⁷ Also, miraa might be approved of in the main, but that does not mean that consuming miraa is acceptable for everyone. Gender is a factor: while women—especially in the Igembe region of the Nyambenes—can sometimes be seen chewing openly, it is fair to say that miraa chewing is more of a male activity. Age, too, plays a part: young boys (especially those engaged in harvesting the commodity) are seen chewing, but this is frowned upon, and it seems that most Nyambene young men begin chewing in their later teenage years (some told me that they began chewing after circumcision). The notion that miraa chewing was once reserved for the elders alone (see Carrier, 2005b) is still commonly heard, suggesting that there are those who wish it still was. However, for Nyambene men, one might say that they almost require a reason not to chew a commodity approved of highly as green gold and as part of Meru heritage.

Approval Beyond the Nyambenes

Attitudes toward miraa beyond the Nyambenes is more mixed, as various factors and discourses combine to form opinions that are often ambivalent or wholly disapproving. However, there are others besides the Nyambene Meru who view it favorably. These include Kenyan Somali who see the substance as a source of income (for a whole range of their people from the small-scale trade of street-side sellers in Somali-dominated towns like Garissa in the north of Kenya, to wealthy international exporters in Nairobi), as a focal point for social gatherings, and as a marker of Somali identity. A Somali I met in an Isiolo kiosk (Isiolo is another northern Kenyan town with a large ethnic Somali population) was surprised to see me chewing and joked that if wazungu (Europeans, or Whites, generally) chew nowadays what will there be left that is a special Somali thing? Through association with it, Somalis have great knowledge of the substance and all its varieties.¹⁸ This knowledge means that miraa consumption will not necessarily be seen as a low-class habit of the poor by Somalis, as they are aware that there exist high-class miraa varieties. One can be distinguished by which variety one chews and gain prestige: thus, wealthy and powerful individuals can chew knowing that fellow cognoscenti will realize one is not chewing the cheap stuff. Just as one does not necessarily associate alcohol with poverty—there are cheap alcoholic beverages and extremely expensive ones—so those au fait with miraa know that chewing, say, alele (an expensive variety) projects a very different image to chewing makata (a cheap variety). The situation regarding Somalis and miraa resembles that for coastal Muslims, other Northern pastoralists like the Borana, and also Asian Muslims. Miraa is chewed by members of these groups from all social strata, and prestige is derived from elite varieties.

Disapproval

Miraa does not meet with total approval among all Somalis, Borana, and Kenyan youth, and disapproval among them can be quite pronounced. For example, although some Somali women chew, there is a perception that miraa chewing is a male vice that woman have to bear. Such a perception was evidently behind an anti-miraa march in Isiolo in the 1970s: participants were, in the main, women (Hjort, 1983). As Hjort says, “there must have been strong sentiments involved to convince these women to come out in the streets and demonstrate” (p. 203). Some Somali women put the blame for marriage break-ups, male unemployment, and male impotence—both sexual and in a broader sense—on miraa. Indeed, talk of a diminution of male sexual potency metaphorically hints at wider male impotence in looking after families. Women lament that some men prefer miraa to them.¹⁹

Disapproval is also common in wider Kenyan society. Kenyan middle classes, perhaps aspiring to Western-influenced models of what being respectable actually means, often view miraa as being something that is incompatible with their lives in modern, forward-looking, Kenya. For the middle classes of Nairobi, miraa can appear as “provincial”: a middle-class—and upper-class—lifestyle in Nairobi is difficult to combine with a controversial “drug” consumed in a manner aesthetically unpleasing to genteel eyes. The association of miraa with the Muslim north also influences attitudes toward it: my first informant in Kenya was a Kikuyu taxi driver who became quite concerned for me when I told him I would be researching miraa in Isiolo. For him, miraa was a Muslim drug that “makes people lazy.” The feeling that northern districts of the country are not quite Kenya still seems to exist among some in central parts of the country, mirrored by the expression used by some northerners that they are “traveling to Kenya” when they head south (H. Arero, personal communication on October 20, 2004). The north of Kenya is an alien land for some, and miraa consumption remains an alien pursuit.

Hotelis (cafes) and nightclubs in Kenya sometimes display signs asking clientele to refrain from chewing miraa on the premises.²⁰ Though in my experience such prohibition is not always strictly enforced—an Ethiopian café in Eastleigh (the Somali dominated area of Nairobi) had such a sign displayed when I visited, but on my quizzing a waiter about it, he tore it down with a chuckle—such signs do represent, and help constitute, the common perception of miraa chewing as something that is unseemly. The material qualities of miraa are clearly relevant too, feeding into how “respectable” miraa is seen to be. The sights and sounds of chewing—bulging cheeks, green teeth, the discarded waste, spitting, and hawking—are hardly likely to endear miraa to Kenyans not traditionally linked to the substance, especially when chewers are compared jokingly with ruminant livestock. Also, miraa consumption is associated with the likes of prostitutes and matatu (public mini-bus) touts: hardly the sort of people middle-class Kenyans would wish to emulate. The association of miraa with all that is antithetical to middle-class lifestyles is explicitly clear in the following quotation from Thomas Akare's The Slums (1981):

This place has the history of the whole town. It is the mother of Nairobi. And that is true, though some call it a two-shilling city because of those two-shilling women, others Majengo, Pumwani, Matopeni because of the mud buildings with brown rusted roofs, or Mairungi City or Miraa because of the drug … That is the Slums. (p. 189)

The situation in Kenya is different from that in the Yemen, where miraa use is institutionalized to a great degree throughout society (Weir, 1985), and where even presidents have been known to chew. A Kenyan president could hardly get away with chewing without controversy: the following snippet from the regular “Watchman” column of the Sunday Nation newspaper of December 15, 2002, shows one reaction to the sight of a political candidate chewing in Mombasa:

Shouldn't aspiring leaders be role models in almost all aspects? poses Sam———, who was stunned by what he saw at a recent NARC campaign rally at Miritini Primary School, Mombasa. “One candidate displayed his prowess as a chain smoker on the dais in full view of the crowd. And another continuously chewed miraa [khat],” Sam reports. (p. 1)

That a candidate chewing miraa is seen as a bad role model is illustrative of the cluster of negative perceptions of miraa that are common in Kenya. Miraa is seen as a “drug,” the consumption of which is aesthetically unpleasing, unhealthy, a burden on household economies, disruptive to family life, a cause of violence, and contrary to religious teaching. Negative perceptions of the substance are hardly new, however: the substance was viewed with great suspicion by British officials in colonial days, and their view of miraa as incompatible with development, and of chewers as being “addicts,” set the tone for future perception of the substance.

British attitudes were not purely the result of experience in Kenya but were also influenced by their colonial involvement in Somaliland and Aden. Many considered miraa to have a harmful effect in these countries and were worried about its effect in Kenya. As Malcolm Clark of the Native Civil Hospital in Wajir, northern Kenya, says in a letter dated May 12, 1939:

My experience is that people under the influence of kat live in a “dream world” and lose all sense of realty. In large doses kat makes them excitable but not, in my experience, violent … A kat addict gradually becomes a listless, lazy, “good-for-nothing” person who lacks all energy and ambition. Kat addicts also lose sexual desire. In Somaliland, where it was worse than here, it was usual to dismiss any domestic servant found eating kat because of its bad effects on their work.

The consumption of miraa led the officer-in-charge of the Northern Frontier District (NFD) to the point of despair, as evidenced by the following letter dated September 19, 1946:

The sale of miraa is rapidly increasing and I was glad to have the opportunity of showing to the Chief Native Commissioner a large number of Meru natives who had just arrived here to sell this filthy drug and also a man in hospital indescribably emaciated as a result of chewing it… It seems to be rather a waste of time and effort providing medical services for the betterment of the health of the local people while we allow them to destroy their physical and mental health with miraa.

Indeed, it was the special concern about miraa use held by British officials in the NFD that led to attempts to control miraa through an ordinance restricting its trade and consumption in that particular region in the 1940s and 1950s. The ordinance proved unenforceable, however, and was soon abandoned as smuggling ensured its continued sale; miraa was even smuggled up to Marsabit in the north by the district commissioner's own driver (P. Baxter, personal communication September 26, 2006).

Miraa and the Kenyan Media

Like the approach of much academic debate on the substance, miraa is commonly presented as a problem in newspaper articles that refer to it,²¹ and little space is given to positive aspects of the substance. Thus it is not surprising that one newspaper article reporting research into miraa's active constituents was called “The Dark Side of Chewing Miraa” (Daily Nation, May 17, 2001).The article was rehashed for the East African Standard (April 20, 2002) and opens describing how a chewer “does not know that the greenish ‘fluid’ he excitedly swallows contain chemicals that surreptitiously affect him.” The article—although blessed with such an ominous title and a negative overall feel—strives for some balance in its approach, providing both positive and negative case-studies of chewers.

Newspapers are known to print even more negative articles. One was printed in 2000 in the Kenya Times. It was titled “The Meru ‘Gold Leaf’ Continues to Cause Havoc in City Homes.” After dismissing speculation as to miraa's health benefits as being unscientific, the article states that “our research showed that the only gain obtained from miraa is ‘madness’, poverty to the coastal people who are the main consumers and wealth to the people of Meru” (The Meru ‘Gold Leaf’, 2006). The reporters highlight ill effects on families: “The consumers' families are sometimes starved or underfed and often suffer from malnutrition. Very few miraa addicts are self-reliant. Many … depend on friends and relatives to get money to buy the drug” (The Meru ‘Gold Leaf’, 2006). The article plays up the link with miraa traders, alcohol, and the perceived poverty of the Nyambenes: “It is not a surprise to find visitors to the area wondering why the locals would spend so much on alcohol while living in utter poverty” (The Meru ‘Gold Leaf’, 2006). The reporters seem fond of fashionable urban living, haughtily commenting on the “shabby dressing style” and “shambles of grass thatched huts” of miraa traders, sceptically described in inverted commas as “millionaires.” (The Meru ‘Gold Leaf’, 2006). A wife of a miraa trader is described as “shabbily dressed and unkempt,” and quoted thus: “Don't ask me where miraa money goes because we women don't see it. My husband runs two Toyota pick-ups … to Nairobi but look at my health and manner of dressing. Do you think I would hate to wear the latest in fashion?” (The Meru ‘Gold Leaf’, 2006). Emphasis is also placed on the lack of education among traders and how this prevents development in the Nyambenes. The article concludes with the following warning: “Miraa has more cons than pros among them health hazard as any other narcotic drug, miraa poses a danger to the chewers in their quest for health. The chewer loses appetite and in most cases are treated for tuberculosis (TB) some show the signs of noticeable mental disturbances which need treatment” (The Meru ‘Gold Leaf’, 2006).

Those more favorable to miraa fight back against such views, and there is debate as to miraa's pros and cons. For example, the Kiswahili-language paper Taifa Leo allows correspondents space for their views in its Wasemavyo Wasomaji²² section. On January 20, 2002, this column was used by a coastal resident to state that a ban on chewing and selling miraa in the northeastern and coastal regions should be considered, referring to miraa as a “dawa hatari ya kulevya” (a dangerous intoxicating drug) that is bad for the health and has held back development in the regions where it is popular. On February 3, 2002, a response to this viewpoint by an Igembe miraa trader based in Mombasa was printed: the column, headed simply “Miraa Haidhuru” (miraa does not harm), set about refuting the claims of the previous column.

A debate show on KBC, the state-run TV station, devoted a whole episode to miraa on March 29, 2000. Alongside the host was a consultant psychiatrist, a graduate student in biochemistry and botany, and Joseph Muturia, a former MP in the Nyambenes. The psychiatrist took the strongest anti-miraa stance, saying miraa used to be used in positive ways, but now has become a “drug of abuse,” a “drug that causes a craving.” He compared cathinone to amphetamine and stressed that amphetamine was an illicit drug. The graduate student defended miraa, describing its valuable work-enhancing properties, as well as its value in helping elders solve disputes (presumably in the Nyambenes). He accused miraa's critics of failing to distinguish between the different varieties of miraa and thus not noticing that certain ill effects are limited to certain varieties. The doctor responded by describing the insomnia associated with miraa as a “disastrous effect.” Muturia joined the fray, relating the history of miraa use and pointing out that he had chewed the substance since 1958 without deleterious side effects. When asked by the host about social problems caused by miraa in the Nyambenes, he replied that people had been paid to “smear miraa.” The host remarked that 7.9 million hours per year were spent chewing in Mombasa alone: this was countered by the graduate student pointing out that not all these hours were spent in idleness given that many chew in work contexts. The psychiatrist made the last point, saying that impotence and malnutrition were the consequences of long-term miraa use. The program ended with Muturia complaining that he had much else to say.

Miraa and Religious Denunciation

Representatives of various religious groups promulgate a negative view of the substance. The most extreme denunciation of miraa emanates from Pentecostal denominations, of which there are several within Kenya. Converts greet new acquaintances with the line “Hi, I'm born again,” and most who do so have adopted a clean-living, abstemious lifestyle, spurning the pleasures of alcohol, cigarettes, and miraa. Pentecostal preachers—and those of similar denominations—urge abstinence from such substances for the sake of salvation in the afterlife. Other Christian denominations tend to be less hardline toward miraa.

The strong association of miraa consumption with Muslims means that Muslim clerics often have much to say about it, and there is debate as to whether or not miraa is halal, (permissible to Muslims).²³ More conservative elements in Kenya's Muslim community argue that miraa should be considered haram (forbidden). Goldsmith stated in his 1988 article that the “most organized opposition [to miraa consumption] is centered on a faction of the Muslim religious establishment on the coast whose anti-miraa campaign is partially funded by Iran” (p. 137), and strict Muslims in Kenya (and elsewhere, including Europe and North America) are often highly critical of the substance. A Kiswahili tract published in Mombasa by an organization known as Answaar Muslim Youth (Ali, 1992) attempts a balanced presentation of the situation, listing both manufaa (benefits) of miraa, as well as madhara (harmful effects). However, the latter (mainly health problems) far outnumber the former (wealth from its trade, alertness, forging friendships). Case studies of chewers are provided, all of them lamenting their consumption, fitting in with the tract's description of miraa consumption as uraibu (often translated as “addiction”). On the question of whether or not miraa is halal, the tract argues that it is not (Ali, 1992, p. 5): miraa changes the mental state, and according to the Prophet Mohammed, “Kila kinachobadilisha akili … ni Haramu” (everything that affects reasoning … the mind is haram). Whether miraa is halal or haram has been debated by Muslims in Ethiopia and Yemen for centuries (see Weir, 1985) and is a major factor in debates about miraa in the Somali Diaspora: some liberal Somali friends of mine in London complain that hardline Muslim thinking was drowning out more moderate views. Also, in 2006 Islamists in control of much of Somalia banned the substance, sparking heated protests from traders and consumers.²⁴

Some consumers are prepared to fight back against such negative views. One convert to Pentecostalism regularly tried to convince friends of mine in Mutuati that miraa consumption is an evil that would lead them to “hell.” They refuted his arguments with passion. Not all “born-again” Christians spurn miraa. One friend reported that he met a born-again Christian at a miraa kiosk in Isiolo chewing avidly. When quizzed about miraa the young man “supported it strongly and quoted the book of Matthew (15: 11,17) saying ‘It's what you think/say that makes you unclean and not what you chew/eat.’” A Muslim Borana woman (admittedly a miraa chewer herself) whom I met in Isiolo defended it similarly: she interpreted the Koran in relation to miraa as meaning that “if you chew miraa and it makes you lazy and late for prayers, then it is bad for you … If you chew and are not affected negatively by it, then you can continue to chew it.”

Is Miraa a “Drug”?: Conflation and Differentiation

The word drug features strongly in the foregoing and, indeed, categorizing miraa as being a drug is common in Kenya and beyond east Africa, while the global reach of the “war on drugs” rhetoric provides this word with considerable power. Such rhetoric is common in Africa, especially as the continent is now a major target of the war on drugs, drug consumption and trafficking being widely perceived as being on the rise (see, for example, the UNOD CCP, 1999).²⁵ U.S.-style antidrug agencies have formed in a number of countries, and in Kenya, miraa is firmly in the sights of NACADA, the National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse. On their Web site, a section devoted to miraa suggests that consumers become enslaved to the substance and a burden to their families and society at large; it even carries the warning “chew miraa, be impotent” (2006).²⁶ This agency has often called for a ban on miraa, including after a recent incident involving a Kenyan boxer being sent home from the Olympics after testing positive for cathine, allegedly from chewing miraa (although the boxer denies this). In media reports of the time, a NACADA spokesman “stressed that the legal status of miraa in the country was tantamount to the government courting death and destruction for its citizens … and appealed to the government to ban the drug, adding that it is one of the most abused drugs in the country” (Boxer Sent Home, 2004). While a ban in Kenya is highly unlikely, given how many people rely on it for a living, to Kenyans influenced by media reports and pronouncements of the likes of NACADA, its legal status can seem anomalous: if miraa is a drug like cocaine, then surely it should be banned.

The word drug comes laden with moral overtones in Kenya, just as it does in Europe or North America, especially when combined with misuse or abuse.²⁷ Describing miraa as a drug suggests condemnation, and rather than seeing their chew of choice being so condemned, most consumers of my acquaintance in Kenya and among the Somali Diaspora are keen to differentiate miraa from other substances popularly considered drugs. Some people deny that it is a drug and apply other labels, descriptions, and comparisons to it. In a report for The Village Voice a journalist met a U.S.-based Yemeni who chastises him for using the term drug, saying “It's not drugs … Even the children in my country use it” (Gardiner, 2006). During my time in Kenya, a representative of a welfare group for Kenyan miraa farmers also insisted that miraa is not a drug, describing it instead as a “food supplement” best taken after breakfast and lunch to help one persevere with work.

Clearly, in differentiating miraa from other substances, consumers are differentiating themselves from other drug users too; they emphasize that not only is miraa a different type of substance, but also that they are different types of people. Miraa consumption in Kenya cuts across social strata, especially among people of Somali, Borana, and Meru ethnic backgrounds (Carrier, 2007); there are impoverished chewers who will consume cheap varieties of miraa, but there are also wealthy chewers—including several politicians—whose prestige can be matched by high-class varieties of miraa. Such consumers are unlikely to appreciate being termed “drug users” given the stereotyped ideas of the latter being low-class, deviant, and far from respectable.

To differentiate miraa and themselves, chewers often point out differences between consuming miraa and consuming other substances. Chewers suggest that the social importance of miraa-chewing sessions marks a clear difference: miraa consumers want not an intense “high” but instead a convivial social gathering with fellow chewers. As one Somali told an American reporter when comparing miraa with other substances, “the pleasures others are looking for, they won't find in khat” (Turnbull, 2002). For such a consumer, the pleasures of miraa lie more in company than in an altered state. While all psychoactive substances are used in social contexts that influence greatly their effects (“set” and “setting” in Zinberg's [1984] terminology), often the emphasis is on the individual's experience with the substance; for example, European or American clubbers seeking powerful isolated chemicals for their “head rush” or “psychonauts” exploring their minds with hallucinogens. Most cultures of miraa consumption revolve around conversation, not introverted experience of a substance's effects on the mind and body. Also, one would have to chew a lot of even the strongest varieties of miraa before coming close to the sort of effects associated with snorting amphetamine or cocaine. The experience is usually far milder; cathinone, miraa's main constituent, has been calculated as “about half as potent as amphetamine” (Zaghloul, Abdalla, El Gammal, and Moselhy, 2003, p. 80); hence, the common description of its effects being rather like a mild form of amphetamine. Just as chewing coca leaves is different from taking pure cocaine, so chewing miraa has a gentler effect than taking isolated cathinone. In my own experience, were miraa much stronger, its usefulness in helping generate conversation and conviviality would be diminished. Generally speaking, its effects help recreational chewers feel comfortable among their fellows and more in the mood for talking. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that chewers—especially those with knowledge of the effects of more powerful psychoactive substances—should feel justified in differentiating miraa as something altogether milder.

However, it should be noted that not every miraa consumer is against the description of miraa as being a drug. Cultures of psychoactive substance use appear to vary in how much emphasis is given to the different elements in the drug experience, and this is certainly true of miraa. There are, of course, many cultures of miraa consumption (see Carrier, 2007), and in some of them miraa's effects are emphasized far more strongly. This seems especially so among youth in Kenya, where chewing varieties known for their strength is often validated as “cool.” Some consumers seek out varieties reckoned to provide the most handas or stimu (terms for miraa's effects; see Carrier, 2007) and gleefully relate tales of their antics when under the sometimes trickster-like influence of such varieties. Such tales resemble strongly those of seasoned drinkers, relying on the humor seemingly inherent in someone not being fully in control of himself. Some fans of miraa have even turned the categorization of miraa as a drug into a positive, reflecting the daring “cool” image that can accrue to drugs in general. A humorous example of this can be seen in the naming of one Kenyan variety as colombo in honor of cocaine, associated as it is with Colombia. The term drug hardly helps make miraa consumption respectable among the aspiring middle-classes in parts of Kenya; however, among some Kenyan youth, more concerned with looking “cool” than aspiring to genteel respectability, terming miraa as a drug gives the substance a certain cachet.

Conclusion

Miraa, like any psychoactive substance, fits into wider local and global discourses and contexts, especially those concerning the production, trade, and consumption of other psychoactive substances. The categorization of miraa as a drug is an example of this, where prejudice can be generated as people conflate it with other, stronger substances with different cultures of consumption. Those enamored of the substance fight back, some denying that miraa can be termed a drug; others categorize miraa as being “cool” or as the economic miracle that supports the Nyambenes. Especially powerful as a counterpoint to the war-on-drugs rhetoric is the discourse of miraa as being traditional and as part of culture. From colonial times onwards, the Meru have emphasized miraa's importance for their traditions. Also, in support of miraa consumption among Somalis in the Diaspora it is also often said that its consumption is part of Somali culture. Like the word drug, such terms as culture and tradition are blunt instruments;²⁸²⁹ they can illuminate certain aspects of miraa's “social life,” but they also carry the risk of obscuring crucial nuance. Describing miraa use as “traditional” can gloss over negative aspects of consumption, just as describing the substance as a “drug” can gloss over more positive aspects. There is so much variety in the way miraa is used and in attitudes toward it that great care is needed in using such generalizations; care is needed even in generalizing about the substance's botanical and pharmacological properties, as these vary greatly too (Carrier, 2006). However, like all debates, those concerning miraa in Kenya have become highly polarized, and whether miraa should be categorized as being a drug, green gold, cool, halal, haram, or as a constitutive part of culture and tradition is likely to be contentious for years to come.

THE AUTHOR

Neil Carrier obtained his Ph.D. from the University of St. Andrews in 2003 for a thesis entitled The Social Life of Miraa: Farming, Trade and Consumption of a Plant Stimulant in Kenya. Since then he was worked as a research assistant at the University of Oxford on an ESRC/AHRC-funded project on khat/miraa and held an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship at St. Anthony's College, Oxford. He is now attached to the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at Oxford University.

Acknowledgments

My interest in khat began with my Ph.D. research into the farming, trade, and production of miraa in Kenya, for which I was kindly sponsored first by a grant from the Carnegie Foundation for Scottish Universities and later by an Economic and Social Research Council studentship. Further research was undertaken in Kenya, Europe, and North America during a research assistantship on a project (The Khat Nexus) sponsored jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council and Arts and Humanities Research Council. Special thanks to Nicholas Mwambia, Abdulkadir Araru, Hassan Arero, Michael Carrier, Douglas Webster, Pauline Whitehead, Paul Baxter, Roy Dilley, Paul Goldsmith, David Anderson, Susan Beckerleg, and Axel Klein.

Notes

Notes

* The journal's style utilizes the category substance abuse as a diagnostic category. Substances are used or misused; living organisms are and can be abused. Editor's note.

¹ For a broad look at the farming, trade, and consumption of psychoactive substances in Africa—with some focus on Kenya—see The Drugs Nexus in Africa, a United Nations Office of Drug Control and Crime Prevention.

² http://www.nacada.go.ke/backgroundphp (Retrieved March 22, 2008)

³ As well as a comprehensive survey of the literature on miraa, this article is based on long-term anthropological fieldwork on the substance in Kenya and the UK (1999 to present).

⁴ By discussing the power of such categories and terms, I do not wish to argue for a strong form of linguistic determinism in the formation of attitudes toward miraa. Clearly, the formation of such attitudes is a highly complex process (filled with such factors as mental associations, reactions to miraa's material qualities, religious beliefs, etc.). However, I do feel that such categories and terms influence this process, and that the term drug exerts an especially strong influence, offering those opposed to miraa a potent rhetorical tool.

⁵ In regard to the health risks of miraa consumption, Kennedy (1987) is eminently sensible and remains the most comprehensive discussion. For a good recent account see Beckerleg's (2006) discussion of Kenyan and Ugandan perspectives on the substance.

⁶ For more on miraa's reception in the West, see Anderson and Carrier (2006). The Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drug's recommendations are published on the Home Office Web site: http://www.drugs.gov.uk/publication-search/acmd/khat-report-2005/

⁷ Other miraa cultivation zones in Kenya include farms around Embu, Marsabit, and the Chyulu Hills.

⁸ For a comprehensive account of Igembe agriculture (with much mention of miraa), see Goldsmith (1994). Also see Bernard (1972) and Carrier (2007). The Tigania and Igembe generational system has been well covered by Peatrik (1999).

⁹ See Goldsmith (1994, 1999) and Carrier (2007) for historical surveys of the growth of the Nyambene miraa trade and the role of various people (Meru, Somali, and Arab, among others), places (such as Isiolo, a town close to the Nyambenes where demand for the substance helped encourage its commoditization early in the 20th century), and events (such as the spread of the Somali Diaspora in the wake of war in Somalia, which has spurred on the development of the international trade).

¹⁰ On khat use among the Somali diaspora, see Nencini, Grassi, Botan, Asseyr, and Paroli (1989), El-Solh (1991), Stevenson, Fitzgerald, and Banwell (1996), Griffiths et al. (1997), Ahmed and Salib (1998), Nabuzoka and Badhadhe (2000), and Carrier (2003).

¹¹ Miraa is now illegal in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere, leading to many smuggling operations from London, where miraa remains legal. It is a substance that often travels in and out of a legal status, leading Cassanelli (1986) to term it a “quasi-legal” commodity.

¹² For a detailed look at the contexts of miraa consumption in Kenya, see Carrier (2007).

¹³ One social ill linked to miraa in the Nyambenes is that of illiteracy and poor schooling attributed to the use of child labor. During my main spells of fieldwork, miraa was usually picked by groups of young boys who, being small and light, were considered less likely to damage trees when harvesting. Those who did so on a regular basis did not go to school. Meru I spoke with viewed this as a problem but emphasized that it was not one limited to miraa alone; the harvesting of other cash crops in Kenya, such as tea and coffee, also often involved the use of child labor.

¹⁴ Ncoolo bundles consist of high-quality miraa and are packaged differently from marketed miraa, so distinguishing them from the mundane sphere (see Carrier, 2005b).

¹⁵ Certainly by the time Europeans such as Arthur Neumann reached the Nyambenes in the late 19th century, miraa cultivation and consumption were already popular among the Tigania and Igembe (Neumann, 1898/1982).

¹⁶ For more on the place of miraa production in the Nyambene economy, see Goldsmith (1988, 1994, 1999) and Carrier (2007).

¹⁷ Some, like the Mutuati teacher mentioned above, abstain while still viewing the substance in a mostly positive way.

¹⁸ See Carrier (2006) on miraa's many varieties and their impact on miraa marketing.

¹⁹ For more on criticism of miraa by Somali women, see Carrier (2007).

²⁰ There is an economic reason for such bans, though, as chewers are perceived to linger for long periods in such places while buying only a soda or two.

²¹ See Weir (1985) on the constant presentation of miraa as a problem in the literature on it.

²² “What the Readers Say” or “Reader's Opinions”

²³ See Beckerleg (2006) on debate about miraa among Kenyan Muslims of Lamu.

²⁴ BBC Correspondent, 2006.

²⁵

²⁶ The link of miraa with impotence—and the somewhat opposed claim that miraa is an aphrodisiac—is a source of much humor, as well as a of rhetorical ammunition for anti-miraa campaigners (see Carrier, 2007). On the NACADA Web site, it is stated that: “Miraa reduces sexual urge in men hence the wives of miraa chewers starve for the need of their partners. This effect of miraa may cause divorce or separation in homes” (http://www.nacada.go.ke/miraa.php).

²⁷ Another partner of “drug” is “psychosis”: see Becker and his early piece on social and cultural aspects of LSD-induced experiences (1970) for a sociological perspective on reports of LSD psychosis. There has been much talk of “khat psychosis” in the medical literature on the substance and in press coverage (see, for example, Halbach, 1972; Alem and Shibre, 1997), although accounts of such a syndrome appear to be based on a thin evidential basis. Also, Becker's (1970) comments on LSD psychosis may still be relevant in regard to “khat psychosis”: “If the drug does prove to be the cause of a bona fide psychosis, it will be the only case in which anyone can state with authority that they have found the unique cause of any such phenomenon; a similar statement applies to causes of crime and suicide” (p. 308).

²⁸ Article posted online: www.hamarey.com/index.php/article/articleview/716/1/4 (accessed May 2004). Article originally published in the Columbus Dispatch.

²⁹ As, of course, is the word discourse, which I have used much in this piece.