Qat, the mildly euphoria-inducing leaf that most Yemeni men while away their afternoons chewing, is one powerful pacifier.
But Somalis need small change with which to buy tea, sugar, qat (a herbal stimulant) and so on.
In the eyes of many foreigners and reform-minded Yemenis, qat is the root of the country's numberless ills.
Kenya profitably exports qat, a leaf stimulant chewed by Somali men, into Jubaland.
"I am a farmer and I have qat farms and I'm getting very good income from qat, " he says.
The most lucrative import is qat, a stimulating leaf chewed by Somali men.
This time round, it is apparently not picking fights with wealthy qat merchants.
They are expected to disavow music, videos, cigarettes and qat, the leaf Somali men chew most afternoons to get mildly high.
This was no tribal dispute to be settled, Yemeni style, by amicable negotiation over glasses of sweet tea and chewing narcotic qat.
Most of these are mainstream: young gunmen of defeated warlords, previously addled on qat, the local narcotic, having their rough edges smoothed.
But the qat tree is the mainstay of the country's economy and the downfall of anyone foolish enough to question its pre-eminence.
Yet, a few days ago, President Ali Abdullah Saleh made it known that he was giving up qat and that his people should do likewise.
Before Yemenis began migrating to the Gulf for jobs, or profiting from Yemen's own modest oil boom, qat was a luxury for the rich on special occasions.
The area given over to coffee quadrupled between 1970 and 1995, but the planting of qat increased more than tenfold, using up huge amounts of land and water.
There may also be rows over how to deal with the lucrative trade in qat, a narcotic leaf that many Somalis chew and which is flown into Mogadishu daily from Kenya and Ethiopia, perhaps accounting for as much as half the city's cash economy.
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