The widespread daily ritual of chewing the amphetamine-rich leaf ‘qat’ is to blame for the growing number of mouth cancers in Yemen, according to local NGO National Foundation to Support Cancer Patients.
The Foundation said the heavy use of pesticides by farmers to grow the crop, cultivated in Yemen for over 500 years, was to blame for the proliferation of cancer cases.
According to Nadeem Mohammed Saeed, head of the state-funded National Oncology Centre (NOC) in the capital Sanaa, about 30 percent of the cancer patients he sees have mouth and gum cancers – which some studies link to `qat’ as well as the heavy use of a chewing tobacco known as ‘shamma’.
“This is really a frightening figure and represents one of the world’s highest rates for mouth and gum cancer,” Saeed said.
Millions chew `qat’ in Yemen, mostly men. At the end of the workday, usually from about 3pm, tight little bundles of the mildly narcotic leaf are bought fresh, and relaxing sessions of talking and chewing begin, which can last hours.
An estimated 70 percent of households have at least one person that uses `qat’, which represents a huge and lucrative business for growers. Cultivating the shrub takes up more than 50 percent of arid Yemen’s arable land and consumes 65 percent of its precious groundwater, according Adel al-Shujaa, head of the Combating `Qat’ Damage Association, a local NGO.
The crop is not a hard-currency earner. It is officially banned in neighboring Saudi Arabia, and with Yemen’s `qat’ consumption the highest in the region, production is mostly for local use.
Read more of the story here at the IRIN news service:
YEMEN: Chewing your way to an early death
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