Airport Press - Serving New York Airports

Vol. 28 No. 1	Serving New York Airports	January 2006

WHAT'S INSIDE

CARGO SUPPLEMENT

THE MIDDLE OF THE RUNWAY

Most Americans have never heard of the drug that is the currency of terrorists operating inside the United States, It goes by different names in different places. In Yemen, it's qat; it's tschat in Ethiopia; and in Kenya it's miraa. On the streets of America it's called khat, and although to possess or distribute khat in America is a crime, its sale and distribution are on the rise in every corner of our nation. Our ignorance is a result of the government's failure to launch a national investigation into

the link between terrorism and khat smuggling, despite the huge quantity of it seized annually by Customs Service and DEA briefs that state the facts clearly. It's bad enough most American are unaware of khat-that's why most police and law enforcement officials never heard of it, either. Put khat on dinner plates at a banquet for any national law-enforcement organization in the country and the narcotic would draw less attention than a healthy portion of green leafy vegetables. Khat is a narcotic. Its psychoactive ingredient, cathinone, is listed in Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act, the most restrictive category used by the Drug Inforcement Administration. Muslim males chew khat at social gatherings, a cultural tradition older than drinking coffee in some regions. The thick wad of chewed leaves, called a quid, is kept between cheek and gum. Chewing it releases the cathinone whose amphetamine-like effect alleviates fatigue and reduced appetite. Some have compared it to drinking a few beers and loosening up. The truth is that the use of khat among Muslim immigrants is as socially and morally damaging as alcohol has been to Native Americans, or crack cocaine to the inhabitants of our

inner cities. Khat flows into America in a continuous stream. Every day from January 2002 to September 2002, Customs officers seized khat in packages coming into the delivery facility in Memphis International Airport. Source in the Customs Service also reported a dramatic rise in khat seizures at New York's JFK and Miami International Airport after 9/11. It's unusual for Great Britain to be the cause of problems in the United States, but the fact is that U.S. Customs officers at JFK

make most of their khat seizures from packages arriving overnight by express mail, or passengers coming from London. Despite the fact that khat is illegal in most of Europe, it is legal in Great Britain, where it is consumed by a very large Somali community. Estimates are that 90 percent of Somali men reportedly chew the leaves regularly. The BBC reports that highly organized gangs in Britain are

making over 150 million pounds a year smuggling khat into the United States. It is estimated that khat is a 1.5 billion dollar industry in America with most of the money headed for criminal activities and terrorism. Right now, khat use is confined to Muslim communities, but we can look to history to see what will most assuredly happen. America initially ignored crack cocaine, believing it was limited to the inner citites. It spread

all over the country overnight, and our War on Drugs hasn't done anything about it except fill our prisons with offenders. Khat will spread, too, unless we stop it flowing into Muslim communities and prevent its profits from being used by militant Islam to wage their Holy War against us. For those interested in continuing to learn about khat, please read may latest book, "Holy War on the Home Front." The contents of this column came directly from Chapter 5, The Drug Connection. Dealing now with the veritable explosion of khat on our streets will make us all safer as we head down the middle of the runway.