A day without qat: Can Yemen do it?

Plucky Yemeni netizens call for a day without qat. Will it work?

Erin CunninghamJanuary 12, 2012

Qat, an ever-green plant with narcotic properties, is Yemen's pasttime. Can Yemenis go a day without it?

That's what one group of Yemeni netizens is trying to accomplish: a day without qat in their drug-stricken country. Online activists called for today to be the day without qat, whose leaves are chewed for hours at a time by the majority of Yemen's adults. A World Bank report estimates that a quarter of working hours are spent chewing, according to the Economist.