11.02.2011                     07.Adar l, 5771

Jemen:

Narcotic plant addiction may be stemming Yemen protests

Some Yemeni youths say qat could be used as a social lubricant to help organize protests, but most believe chewing the plant mainly dulls citizens' revolutionary fervor.

Yemen's opposition has drawn tens of thousands of people to the streets to rally against three decades of autocratic rule of President Ali Abdullah Saleh, but by noon the protesters quietly vanish.
Many head straight from the streets to the souk, or market, to buy bags stuffed with qat, the mild stimulant leaf that over half of Yemen's 23 million people chew daily, wiling away their afternoons in bliss, their cheeks bulging with wads of qat….