Khat and coffee are stimulants but cathinone and caffeine are starkly different. The intent is to avoid substances that can be distilled or processed into produ

Khat and coffee are stimulants but cathinone and caffeine are starkly different. The intent is to avoid substances that can be distilled or processed into products that cause significant harms, like stimulant psychosis or death by vasoconstriction. Coca, khat, and ephedra are plants traditionally chewed, resulting in a mild stimulant effect from doses of cocaine, cathinone, or ephedrine(an amphetamine analog.) Those plants are processed to get pure cocaine, various "bath salts" and amphetamines. Coffee is boring in that regard. Caffeine just kills you or makes you incredibly uncomfortable as doses get higher. The others can be consumed in concentrated forms that alter health and behavior outcomes in a huge way. Under their model, it does make sense to ban qat/khat but not coffee. Despite that, what we need is better education about drugs and substance use. Legalize everything and divert a portion of the enforcement and bureaucratic budgets to health and education. Stop criminalizing and stigmatizing users, creating black markets and enforcing ignorance. The harms of prohibition and the drug war are about as obvious as anything can be... so let's stop digging and crawl out of this goddamn hole already.