Police, Health Ministry uncover operation selling methamphetamine labeled as 'khat drops'

Lab tests confirmed that "khat drops" sold in Israel were methamphetamine, police said Sunday. Khat leaves are legal in Israel, but any extract of the plant is illegal.

Israel Police, along with the Health Ministry's Enforcement and Inspection Division, recently uncovered a dangerous and illegal operation in which methamphetamine was being sold as "khat drops," police said on Sunday.

Laboratory tests confirmed that the substance marketed as khat was, in fact, methamphetamine (commonly known as meth or speed), according to police. They did not explain how they came to suspect the dealers, nor did they say where in Israel the product was sold, how large the operation was, whether any arrests were made, or whether the mislabeled product caused any overdoses.

The Jerusalem Post has reached out to Israel Police for further comment.

What is khat, and is it similar at all to methamphetamine? 

In Israel, khat is legal to buy, sell, and consume in its natural leaf form, but any extract of the plant is entirely illegal. Even if the drops had contained a genuine khat extract, selling them would still have been against the law.

According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Australia's Alcohol and Drug Foundation (ADF), khat (Catha edulis) is a flowering evergreen shrub used for its stimulant-like effect, which speeds up messages between the brain and the body. It is used in traditional and social settings by many cultures and subcultures throughout the Middle East.

The vast majority of users chew the buds and leaves of the plant, which is native to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. A small minority drink it brewed from dried leaves or smoke the dried leaves, according to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The DEA's khat fact sheet compares the plant's effects to those of cocaine, amphetamine, and methamphetamine.

Methamphetamine, the drug police found being sold as "khat drops," is a lab-made stimulant with a high potential for addiction, according to the NIH.

"Marketing a dangerous drug under the guise of a supposedly natural product is a particularly grave issue," police said. "It exposes the public to significant health risks - often without consumers even realizing that they are ingesting a dangerous drug."

"Furthermore, extracts and preparations containing substances derived from the khat plant - including drops, beverages, and capsules - are classified under the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance," the police statement added. "Their consumption, marketing, and production are prohibited by law."