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Farming Amphetamines: Khat (Catha edulis Forsk.) a Traditional Plant with Mild Stimulating Psychoactive and Medicinal Properties

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Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of the Middle-East

Part of the book series: Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of the World ((MAPW,volume 2))

Abstract

Khat (Catha edulis Forsk., Celastraceae) is a flowering perennial shrub with a long history of use and cultivation in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Young khat leaves are traditionally chewed in social gatherings to attain special states of mind, aimed especially at awakeness and enhanced mind focus. Since khat chewing contains amphetamine-like molecules and reportedly causes addiction among users it is banned in most countries, but it is part of social life and legal in some countries. The main pharmacoactive compounds present in khat leaves are the phenylpropylamino alkaloids (S)-cathinone and (S)-cathine.

L-Phenylalanine serves as a key biosynthetic precursor of phenylpropylalkaloids. Phenylalanine is converted by a series of not yet fully characterized reactions involving chain-shortening to benzaldehyde, then ligation to decarboxylated pyruvate, oxidation and incorporation of an amino group to yield (S)-cathinone, the most active compound accumulating in young leaves. (S)-Cathinone is subsequently reduced to (S)-cathine, the main compound accumulated in mature leaves, but pharmacologically less active than (S)-cathinone. The pharmacological prospects of khat uses and some personal experiences of one of the authors in khat chewing are described here.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Edward E. Farmer for critically reviewing this manuscript and Grant 31003A-140512/1 from the Swiss National Fund, for funding. We Agricultural Research Fund grant This work was partially supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 814/06) and the Canada-Israel Binational Agricultural Research and Development Fund (Project CA-9117-09).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biochemistry and Pharmacology, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer-Sheva, Israel

    Shimon Ben-Shabat

  2. Department of Plant Molecular Biology, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Pierre Goloubinoff

  3. The Aromatic, Medicinal and Spice Crops Unit, Newe Ya’ar Research Center, Agricultural Research Organization, Ramat Yishay, Israel

    Nativ Dudai & Efraim Lewinsohn

Authors
  1. Shimon Ben-Shabat
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  2. Pierre Goloubinoff
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  3. Nativ Dudai
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  4. Efraim Lewinsohn
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shimon Ben-Shabat .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Plant Introduction and Seed Research Institute of Plant Sciences, Agricultural Research Organisation, Bet-Dagan, Israel

    Zohara Yaniv

  2. The Aromatic, Medicinal and Spice Crops Unit Newe Ya’ar Research Centre, Agricultural Research Organization, Ramat Yishay, Israel

    Nativ Dudai

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Ben-Shabat, S., Goloubinoff, P., Dudai, N., Lewinsohn, E. (2014). Farming Amphetamines: Khat (Catha edulis Forsk.) a Traditional Plant with Mild Stimulating Psychoactive and Medicinal Properties. In: Yaniv, Z., Dudai, N. (eds) Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of the Middle-East. Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of the World, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9276-9_9

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