Leave it to America to make it illegal.

'The World Health Organization has studied khat repeatedly over the years, most recently in 2006 when it assessed its health impact as quite modest. It also has concluded that it does not merit international control.

“No one except the U.S. government asserts khat is particularly addictive,” said Bob Burrows, a professor of Middle East politics at the University of Washington, who spent eight years in Yemen, another khat-chewing society. “Another thing is there is no hallucinating. Khat gives a sense of well being. It’s a very social thing.”'

Making a federal case out of an obscure leaf