Khat: A Psychologist's Field Trip

Looking for a chew in London.  I ran across a great story by Vaughan Bell at Mind Hacks, about his stroll around London, looking for khat, the East African stimulant plant that is chewed much like coca leaves.  Research psychologist Vaughan Bell is not your average armchair academician. Currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, Bell is well known online for his contributions to the Mind Hacks blog, which covers unusual and intriguing findings in neuroscience and psychology. He recently taught clinical psychiatry at Hospital Universitario San Vicente de Paúl and the Universidad de Antioquia in Medellín, Colombia, where he remains an honorary professor. He has also worked for Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) as a mental health coordinator for Colombia. (See my interview with Bell last year). Reprinted with permission: Finding myself at a loose end yesterday I decided I’d try and track down one of London’s mafrishes – a type of cafe where people from the capital’s Ethiopian, Somali and Yemeni community chew the psychoactive plant khat. I’d heard about a Somali cafe on Lewisham Way and thought that was as good a place as any to try. The cafe owner first looked a bit baffled when I walked in and asked about khat but he sat me down, gave me tea, and went out back to ask his associates. “Sorry, there’s no khat in Lewishman. We have internet?” he suggested while gesturing towards ...
Source: Addiction Inbox - Category: Addiction Authors: Source Type: blogs