A day without qat: Can Yemen do it?
A Yemeni vendor displays qat leaves, a popular local mild narcotic plant, for sale at an outdoor market in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
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.
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Check the Twitter hashtag #noqatJan12 for the campaign's progress. This Storyful page also has an excellent overview of what Yemenis are saying about their day without qat.
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