Khat in Yemen is one of the biggest problems," he says, "and there is no political effort to fight this plant."
Noaman says the plant is creating a nation of sloths, noting that even protests against the government have been known to end early so people can go home to chew. And there's an oft-told tale of the warring parties in Yemen's 1994 civil war arranging daily ceasefires so soldiers on both sides could indulge.
"In the afternoon, people in Yemen go home and eat khat only and stay five, six and some of them 12 hours at the same place without doing anything, only watching TV. In Yemen it even damaged our agriculture. We become a state or a nation which imports its food from outside Yemen."
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