Amid growing concerns about muguka, a highly addictive variant of khat, Kenya needs evidence-based regulations to balance public health and economic interests.

In May 2024, Mombasa County governor Abdulswamad Nassir banned the sale, supply and consumption of muguka in the coastal county. "We won't die so others live [We won't let citizens die so that others can reap the profits]," he said about the possible impact of this ban on farmers.

Muguka is a low-cost, highly addictive variant of khat (Catha edulis) grown in Embu, Meru and Tharaka-Nithi counties in central Kenya. Both muguka and miraa stem from the same plant, but muguka consists solely of the leaves, while the pricier miraa includes the stems and leaves.

However, President William Ruto overturned the ban on muguka, and the high court's Justice Lucy Njuguna issued a restraining order to the coastal counties from effecting the ban until 8 July 2024.

Miraa/muguka is a scheduled crop under the Crop Act 2013 and the Miraa Regulations 2022. The latter obligates the government to allocate funds for the farming, licensing, promotion, regulation, transportation, aggregation, selling, marketing and export of the crops.

Miraa is also a multimillion-shilling export crop to Somalia and has lucrative local markets. The miraa-growing region consistently votes for and supports the current government, which has rewarded it with...