POOR YEMEN SPENDS $6 MLN A DAY ON MILD DRUG QAT

SANAA (Reuters) - The Yemeni population spends 20 million hours and
800 million rials (US$6 million) each day chewing the popular mild
drug qat, a group campaigning against its use said Thursday. The
Yemeni Society for Combating the Damaging Effects of Qat said that,
according to statistics it has compiled up to 1995, about 400 billion
rials is spent each year on the qat trade, "which is more than the
Yemen state budget annually." Qat is a bitter tasting leaf which
requires hours of chewing to produce its mild stimulant effect.

The government has previously warned that chewing qat has been linked
to thousands of cancer cases each year.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry