Drug Effects

Lisa L. Gezon is Professor and Chair in the Department of Anthropology, University of West Georgia.

This ambitious book succeeds effectively in both of its distinctive aims. First, it offers a clear understanding of khat, a shrub with leaves that are chewed for psychoactive effects by limited populations around the world. This account is richly detailed for Madagascar, where khat has been grown for only a few decades, and there are excellent summaries about Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia, and a few other areas where it has been popular. Secondly, Gezon hews faithfully to her aim to exemplify "critical medical anthropology," an approach that combines meticulous ethnographic description of a local health issue (with full economic, political, and historical context) with an emphasis on relations that involve wealth and power on the global scene. The clearly written and well organized result nicely summarizes the peculiar but impressive ways that this "green gold" (mistakenly presumed by some to be illegal) supports economic development, female entrepreneurship, and ethnic identity without interfering with diet, work, health, or the local ecology. Impressive on both counts. Summing Up: Highly Recommended. All levels/libraries." - D.B. Heath, CHOICE

• 1: Introduction Part I: Consumption, Identity, and Health 2: Patterns of Consumption 3: Leaf of Paradise or Scourge?: Drug Effects, Health and Legalization Part II: Indirect Effects: Production and Trade 4: Growing and Selling Khat 5: Implications for Food Security and Conservation 6: Intimate Livelihoods: Gender and Survival on the Margins Part III: The Silence of Green Gold: Drug Effects in Economies on the Margins 7: Khat on the Global Margins: Wars on Drugs, State Silence, and Alternative Development Drugs on the Global Margins 8: Tying It Together References Index About the Author