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In Yemen they've long known that money does grow on trees. They were trading in frankincense and myrrh – tree and shrub borne essences – long before these three men wised up to the aromatics as an ideal Christmas gift.

Now they're trading in another intoxicating tree – the qat. Yemen's growers are turning a tidy profit, but it's turning the nation's men into drug obsessives, wasting their work days chewing away on a mind altering cud.

Cheeks ballooned by qat leaves are everywhere in Yemen – chewing and chatting on the buzz has become a national pastime. But when does an ancient tradition become destructive modern habit? ABC newsman, Trevor Bormann and the blight on an otherwise spectacular Arab outpost.

Yemen

Music

00:00

Bormann: In an isolated land once ruled by the ancient Queen of Sheba a tribal people guard their medieval past.

Music/Market FX

Sana’a marketplace

Bormann: A walk through the marketplace of the old city of Sana’a is much the same journey one might have taken a thousand years ago.

00:29

The women protect their modesty, the men brandish their daggers. But a hideous affliction is ravaging a culture and bringing a nation to its knees.

Bodine: It takes up a lot of land, it takes up a lot of water,

00:48

Super:

Barbara Bodine,

US Ambassador

it takes up a lot of human resources, and it doesn’t produce anything for Yemen.

Bormann: To the outsider, it’s a grotesque sight -- mouths bulging, cheeks full of the green leaves of Yemen’s most popular plant, a plant that in many other countries would be banned.

Walid Al Saqqaf: I mean I’m very embarrassed to say that it may be part of the culture right now,

Al Saqqaf

and it’s integrated into the Yemeni culture.

01:14

Map

Music

01:24

Bormann on street

Bormann: It’s called qat -- spelt q-a-t. And in this place it’s nothing short of a national obsession.

01:37

It determines what people do and when they do it. It controls peoples lives. A drug so loved most Yemenis could never kick the habit.

Ninety percent of men in Yemen chew qat, and up to 50 percent of women chew in less public displays.

Man in market: In Yemen, all like that.

Man walking through market

Bormann: The drug increases the pulse and blood pressure. keeps you awake and stimulates the mind.

Professor Ahmed Al Hadrani: You will feel that you are active, you want to speak, you want to write, you want to do your activity.

02:02

Professor Ahmed Al Hadrani

It doesn’t cause excitement or that you want to fight some people or get angry easily. No, on the contrary.

02:18

Men at qat party

Bormann: Yemeni intellectuals have been doing this for six hundred years. Chewing qat and arranging marriages and settling tribal wars.

02:24

In a well to do suburb in the capital Sana’a, writer Hamud Munasar and his friends are holding their daily qat party and talking about all kinds of things.

Munasar: It depends on

Munasar

which kind of people who are in the qat session. Maybe we discuss kidnapping issue, peace process in the Middle East.

02:45

Hamud and his friends are feeling mellow, as they are during their gathering every afternoon.

In many other countries this sort of get together would be illegal. America’s Drug Enforcement agency says qat is a narcotic in its own class.

Wadi Dhahr

Music

03:14

Bormann: On the edge of the great plateau of southern Arabia fertile ribbon on green sweeps across the valley floor of Wadi Dhahr.

In the shadow of an emir’s tower house they call the rock palace, farmer Ali Mujahed Unoos cultivates Yemen’s most important cash crop.

The trees grow ten metres. Ali risks breaking his neck with a climb for choice cuttings for the daily market.

Qat branches/Trevor and Ali walk

In the next field Ali shows me his new plantation. Fruit trees used to grow here, but they’ve been torn out.

03:521

Ali

Ali Mujahed Unoos: Qat is five times more valuable.... you can pick fruit only once a year - with qat, we can pick it twice or three times a year.

04:04

If this field is grown with fruit it will only yield five thousand riyals but qat will give fifty to sixty thousand riyals.

04:16

Local qat market

Bormann: Ali’s qat is in great demand at his local market. The drug must be kept fresh --picked and chewed on the same day.

04:29

What’s not sold in local villages finds its way to the main qat markets in Sana’a. Better roads mean qat is an accessible fix for most Yemenis, as my guide Mohammed explained.

Trevor and Mohammed

Bormann: So how many different stall holders would be here?

02:54

Mohammed: Different stalls here and over there, and people collect qat from different places and bring it here and sell it. So you can see…

Bormann: So what’s this in here, is it good qat or bad qat?

Mohammed: It’s good.

Qat buyers

Bormann: The competition is spirited -- depending on the quality you pay anything from five to fifty dollars for a bunch.

05:17

By one o’clock, the qat has travelled from plantation to buyer.

By three o’clock, the chew-fest is ready to begin.

Bodine: It is part of the rhythm of life here. For example, if you have a lunch, everyone at three o’clock just gets up and leaves because it’s then time

Bodine

to go buy the qat, go home sit down and start your qat chew, which then lasts until sunset. And it’s a very, very rigid pattern.

05:48

Walid

Super:

Walid Al Saqqaf

Editor, Yemen Times

Walid Al Saqqaf: If you take the schedule or the timetable of a regular Yemeni, you'd see that from the morning til let's say around 12 to 1, or sometimes 2 o'clock they work. And after that, instead of going back to work they leave and go to the Mafraj where they can chew qat for the rest of the day.

05:59

Guys on truck

Music

06:20

Old man/kids play/Al Hajjarra

Bormann: This is a country with one of the lowest literacy rates in the world.

06:37

Many of the children work on their families’ qat farms at the expense of an education.

In the village of Al Hajjarra, Ali Ahmed Basir is a child trying to learn to read, but he still has to work. A deal in his pocket is a day’s wage.

Trevor with Ali

Bormann: So how does it make you feel?

Ali: If I am tired and I chew qat, after I don’t tire. But if I am tired and I sleep, I don’t read anything.

07:00

Bormann: In the remote highland villages a subsistence livelihood means total dependence on a qat economy.

The coffee crops have gone, and afternoon qat sessions leave children playing with little parental control.

Not surprisingly, they’ve taken up the habits of their parents.

Trevor with boys

Trevor: So what are you doing there?

07:42

Kid: Qat.

Trevor: But you’re very young to be chewing qat aren’t you?

Kid: Do you want some?

Trevor: La shukruhn.

Kid: No problem.

Trevor: No. But the qat is for adults. It's not for children.

Bodine: There’s no social stigma here

Bodine

Super:

Barbara Bodine

US Ambassador

to chewing qat, so this isn’t an act of rebellion against the parents, it’s probably done with the parents.

08:05

Sana’a University

And yet this is a nation where the poor do have opportunities.

08:16

Sana’a University offers scholarships to young men and women regardless of their financial means.

Fuad in library

Fuad Saleh is in the final year of a pharmacology course. He and his friends are approaching exams. The pressure’s on.

08:29

At home Fuad and his mates chew qat to keep them going.

Trevor: How do you feel when you chew qat?

08:44

Fuad/Friend

Fuad: Normal, more active in the study.

Friend: I feel happy.

Walid Al Saqqaf: It is indeed getting out of control because no one could imagine students and chewing qat

Al Saqqaf

which if continued in the same level would truly be a total addiction in the future.

09:04

Kids perform

Singing

09:11

Bormann: There’s a growing recognition here that life in Yemen simply can’t go on like this.

At a gathering in Sana’a a, group of children sing of the scourge of qat.

The boys are orphans, the organisation is called the Qat Combating Society, an unlikely alliance of young people and intellectuals.

"This is the disease of our nation that we should be giving up’’ the boys sing. "It brings only badness. Be aware -- get rid of it."

09:38

Woman at performance

Woman: It affects our health and it’s a waste of money. It affects the family and the way they deal with each other.

09:554

Kids perform

Bormann: Through art and drama the Qat Combating Society is trying to turn the tide of a curse that is so entrenched in the social and economic fabric of this country.

10:20

Cartoons/Dr Al Awadi with Bormann

Super:

Dr. Hameed Al-Awadi

Qat Combating Society

Dr Hameed Al Awadi: We target the new generation and we think that we must have a long term policy to raise awareness about the impact of qat. So this is why we go to the student population, so our target population is student, not the adult people.

10:45

Bormann: An unlikely guest at this event was the Yemeni culture minister.

It’s the closest we came to talking to an official about qat. On one hand the government realises the social and economic damage of the drug. But the fact is, most ministers are chewers.

Super:

Abdulmalik Mansur

Culture Minister

Abdulmalik Mansur: It is very old and traditional and around 90 per cent of the people practice it, it needs a study, and we need to highlight the awareness of the danger.

11:26

Newspaper office

Bormann: The crusade to wean Yemen from qat is in it’s infancy, but there are some determined campaigners. The Yemen Times newspaper is rigorous in its opposition to the drug. Its editor thinks qat makes Yemenis lazy and slurs the country’s reputation.

11:44

Al Saqqaf

Walid Al Saqqaf: It's something that we must deal with and we must treat fast. Otherwise we will truly become – it will become a phenomenon which is, which will always stick to Yemeni tradition and so on. So I want this to be removed, but it's a very long process and it needs the commitment of the government.

12:00

Music

12:21

Village in Haraz Mountains

Bormann: But in the Haraz Mountains west of Sana’a another force is challenging this obsession with qat. An outside religious order is laying down the law.

This is a shrine to the Ishmali sect, an obscure brand of Islam with its headquarters in India.

12:41

The masters in Delhi aren’t at all impressed with this addiction to qat. Surrounding villagers have been pressured to grow other crops instead.

Ismail Al Harazi

Ismail Al Harazi: Maybe thirty thousand trees have been removed. Some have removed the qat – others have not… but those who have removed the qat have planted coffee and other fruits.

13:04

Music/Singing

13:12

Bormann: But down the road, nothing can stop the afternoon ritual.

FX: Ululating

Trevor tries qat

Trevor: Is this good stuff?

Mohammed: Yeah, good, good.

Trevor: I'll try.

Mohammed: Like this.

Trevor: And do you swallow it straight away?

Mohammed: Some people they swallow it up, but for some people they keep it here. They chew it for some time and keep it here.

Trevor: So you have to get a big ball in your cheek?

Mohammed: It's not important.

Trevor: So when do you start feeling high?

Mohammed: After some time for some people.

Qat leaves

Bormann: To be honest, it takes serious training to get any kick out of qat. Those who enjoy it liken it to the stimulation from caffeine.

14:17

Music

Bormann: There's no evidence that qat is either chemically addictive of physically harmful in the long term.

It can make you constipated, make your teeth turn green, but it doesn’t cause cancer.

Music/singing

Al Hadrami

Bormann: If it's not really bad for you, is it such a problem?

14:49

Super:

Prof. Ahmed Al Hadrani

Sana'a University

Ahmed Al Hadrami: Well, this is a sensitive issue really to tell you. But you know, in Holland I heard that they allow to sell hashish, you know, free on the streets. So – and some people they say that to use qat which isn't addictive is better than to use drugs.

Yemen village

Music

15:11

Bormann: It might not kill you, but qat is an insidious drug that's ruining an economy and giving a nation a bad reputation. And in one of the most beautiful places on earth, it's producing a society of malingerers.

Stifling productivity and making a poor country even poorer.

Music

Credits:

Reporter: Trevor Bormann

Camera: Geoff Clegg

Sound: Kate Graham

Editor: Stuart Miller