Is khat (miraa) legal in Kenya?

What the Kenyan law says

Kenya treats miraa as an agricultural commodity rather than a controlled drug. The Crops Act, 2013 lists it as a scheduled crop, which places it in the same legal category as tea, coffee and other cash crops — recognised, licensable and taxable.

Regulations made under that Act set out how the state funds and administers the sector: the farming, licensing, promotion, regulation, transport, aggregation, sale, marketing and export of the crop. In practice this means miraa has a licensing regime, not a prohibition.

Where Kenyan law is still contested

The picture is not entirely settled. Miraa also appears in Kenya's Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act, a legislative overlap that analysts have described as an ambiguity, and one that has driven repeated calls for clearer regulation.

The debate has centred on muguka — a variety of the same plant — with proposals brought before the National Assembly to distinguish miraa from muguka and remove the latter from the scheduled-crop list. County-level restrictions on muguka have been attempted separately. None of this changes the national legality of miraa, but it is an active policy area rather than a closed question.

Khat is not under international drug control

The World Health Organization's Expert Committee on Drug Dependence has reviewed khat three times — a critical review in 1962, a pre-review in 2003 and a further critical review in 2006. On each occasion it declined to recommend placing the plant under international control.

In its 2006 assessment the Committee found the potential for abuse and dependence to be low and judged that the level of threat to public health did not warrant international scheduling. It did, however, recommend that countries run educational programmes to discourage heavy use, so "not scheduled" should not be read as "no concerns".

The plant itself and its isolated alkaloids are treated differently. Cathinone and cathine, khat's two principal stimulant compounds, have been listed under the 1971 UN Convention on Psychotropic Substances since the early 1980s — cathinone in Schedule I and cathine in Schedule III.

Where khat is illegal

Legality is national, and it varies widely. The United Kingdom made khat a Class C drug with effect from 24 June 2014, making its production, possession, supply, import and export illegal there. Khat or its alkaloids are also controlled across much of Europe and in the United States.

This matters practically: khat is legal where Jaba Juice is made and sold, and carrying it — in leaf or any other form — into a country that bans it is a criminal offence there. Jaba Juice is sold for consumption in Kenya only.