YEMENI DRUG COMES TO AMERICA, PROMPTS CRACKDOWN ON ARAB IMMIGRANTS

NEW YORK (AP) In a tiny Brooklyn cafe with faded tourist posters of Yemen in
the window, the mood at a table of Arab men darkens when the topic turns to
khat.

"In my country, khat is easy," says Abdul Rahman. "Everybody, the president,
they have it. ... I don't understand this."

Rahman, a 26-year-old Yemeni, was working at the cafe on the Islamic holiday
Eid al-Adha when the U.S. war on drugs arrived. Narcotics cops calmly walked
in, secured the door and busted three men in the basement, he said.

Raids at the Blue Province Restaurant and two other Yemeni businesses last
month had nothing to do with cocaine, designer drugs or even marijuana.
Instead, the suspects allegedly were selling khat, a leafy stimulant which
to those who chew it like tobacco is no more sinister than a double
espresso.

Rahman and other Arab immigrants in Brooklyn claim that before last month,
few knew that khat (pronounced cot) is illegal in their new country.

"The community has been consuming khat for a long time this is not a
secret," said Ali Sharaf, a member of a Yemen-American student group. "I'm
surprised that now it's a big thing."

After all, back home in the Arabian peninsula Yemenis chew khat openly,
often daily, and police couldn't care less. It's the same in Djibouti and
Somalia on the Horn of Africa. But U.S. authorities got interested when khat
appeared more and more in Arab communities around the country, usually
smuggled in but in one case grown in bulk in what amounted to a plantation.

In New York City, the arrests for dealing in khat were the first in recent
memory, and perhaps ever. Police spokesman Sgt. Andrew McInnis said that New
York officials saw khat as an evil like other illegal drugs.

"This is a serious problem," he said. "We responded to complaints about the
negative impact on the community."

Authorities allege the immigrant suspects broke laws banning possession of
cathonine the key ingredient in freshly cut khat leaves, which look like
basil. The federal government lists cathonine as a "Schedule I" controlled
substance, the same category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

Cathonine diminishes within three days of harvest. What remains is a
substance called cathine, which is less potent but still illegal.

Khat chewers say it gives them energy and a feeling of euphoria. But the
Drug Enforcement Administration warns that khat is psychologically
addictive.

Compulsive use, the DEA says, "may result in manic behavior with grandiose
delusions or in a paranoid type of illness, sometimes accompanied by
hallucinations."

In Yemen, khat is to the people what vodka is to Russians deeply rooted in
society, but viewed by some as a source of social ills.

Khat is believed to have been traded as a commodity even before coffee. It
originated centuries ago in Ethiopia, then spread through east Africa and
parts of the Middle East. Muslim legend has it that leaves from the
evergreen shrub fueled all-night prayer vigils.

Today, most Yemenis, including government officials, are unrepentant users.
Even visitors are encouraged to try it.

But worried that too many government workers were wasting away their
afternoons and their income chewing khat, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has
tried to set an example by announcing he would only chew on weekends.

The United Nations estimates that in Djibouti, 98 percent of the men use
khat flown in from Ethiopia to numb the pain of poverty. Somalian warlords
dole it out to soldiers as part of daily rations.

But in the United States, news reports and statistics suggest that the
market for khat is limited and nonviolent. Unlike other drugs, authorities
know little about the supply sources and routes. U.S. Customs confiscated
49,000 pounds of khat in fiscal 1999; by comparison, marijuana seizures
totaled 1.2 million pounds.

Enforcement appears to be random. Most of the khat seizures were made at
Kennedy and Newark airports based on the plant's pungent smell. Agents who
caught a whiff during random inspections last year found a total of 30,500
pounds stashed in luggage, mainly in amounts so small the couriers weren't
prosecuted.

Elsewhere, Border Patrol agents stopping two Somalis at a checkpoint last
year in Southern California found a small amount of khat rolled up in banana
leaves and newspaper. A state trooper made a similar find after stopping an
Arab motorist on the New Jersey Turnpike, as did Denver airport authorities
searching cargo from New York.

In Minneapolis, Minn., authorities hit six Somalis last year with drug
charges for carrying khat. And in San Jose, Calif., a Yemeni man was
arrested in 1998 for growing 1,000 plants in what was described as the first
khat plantation in the United States.

But with other narcotic cases tying up cops and courts, khat cases are an
exception. Khat, concedes New York DEA spokesman Stan Skowronski, "is
probably not one of our priorities."

Police launched the Brooklyn investigation about six months ago after
receiving information that street dealers were peddling khat around Arab
storefronts. The going price was $40 for a day's supply.

On March 15, an undercover narcotics officer bought khat at a Yemeni
restaurant. The next day, the Islamic holiday, officers found customers
lined up for refrigerated khat being cut up and sold at the Blue Province
Restaurant and nearby Yemen Cafe, authorities said.

By the time officers wrapped up the investigation with a raid on another
Arab restaurant a week later, they had seized about 240 pounds of khat and
arrested eight suspects, some carrying more than $2,000 in their pockets.
The suspects face maximum sentences of 2 1/3 to 7 years in prison if
convicted of felony drug charges.

An attorney for one suspect, James Palumbo, said his client was shocked to
find himself the target of a drug bust. The community, he added, doesn't
need to see anyone go to jail to be scared straight.

"These are law-abiding people," he said. "The cops have made their point."

A young Yemenite, who admitted buying khat at the Blue Province only an hour
before the police raid, agreed.

"When you're around (khat), you've got to have it," the man, who gave his
name as Jamil, said with a sheepish smile. "But it's bad for us. We need to
stop it."