Pubdate: Thu, 26 Jun 2008
Source: New Statesman (UK)
Copyright: 2008 New Statesman
Contact:  http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1067
Author: Hugh Barnes

BANNING KHAT

An overdue reform of drugs policy or another draconian  attack on our 
civil liberties? Hugh Barnes reflects on  the Tory proposal

Never mind about salmon fishing in the Yemen. Reverse  the process of 
cultural transplantation and you get  khat-chewing in the UK, which 
may sound like an equally  harmless minority pastime, but not if 
you're a Tory  drugs tsar (or tsarina). The shadow communities 
minister Sayeeda Warsi announced last week that a  future government 
led by David Cameron would outlaw  chewing of the psychotropic shrub 
Catha edulis on the  grounds that its juices addle the brains of 
Yemenis,  Somalis and Ethiopians who are living in this country.

The idea of such a ban poses a challenge to Britain's  ruminating 
multiculturalists. Is it an overdue reform  of drugs policy, bringing 
us into line with  international orthodoxy on public health? (In the 
US,  for example, khat is classified as a schedule-one drug  as it 
contains the amphetamine-like chemical  cathinone.)

Or is it another draconian attack on our civil  liberties? Khat is a 
narcotic leaf that has been chewed  for centuries in the Arabian 
peninsula and parts of  east Africa. Khat-chewing is as socially 
acceptable in  Yemen today as smoking was in Europe or America a 
generation ago, except that it's even more of a  national 
institution. Farmers chew khat to fortify  themselves for a long day 
in the fields. Students often  use it to sharpen their minds before 
exams, while for members of the political elite it serves, to 
some  degree, as a substitute for the alcohol that is denied  by 
Islam. No Yemeni cabinet meeting is said to take  place without it.

The ancient Romans called Yemen "Arabia Felix" because  it was the 
home of frankincense and myrrh. Nowadays,  the happy hours begin at 
lunchtime when the country  more or less grinds to a halt and 
everybody heads home  clutching bundles of khat leaves. Connoisseurs 
refer to  "storing" rather than chewing khat because they 
deposit  the mush in their cheek to help absorption into the  blood. 
Among the comical sights of late afternoon in  downtown Sanaa are the 
green teeth and distended cheeks  of serious khat chewers, packing 
wads the size of  golfballs.

Until recently it was a uncommon sight in the west.  Immigrants from 
the Red Sea had to make do with coffee,  another Arabian plant that 
induces a mild increase in  concentration and well-being, because the 
leaf, unlike  the bean, doesn't travel well. The amount of cathinone 
in khat is minuscule - about 36 parts per 100,000 when  freshly cut. 
However, once it has been cut, the  cathinone breaks down rapidly and 
after a week is only  a hundredth of its original level. Khat must be 
chewed  within days or it loses its potency.

Air transport now means that khat is available in the  corner shops 
of London, Bristol, Birmingham, Sheffield  and Cardiff. Indeed 
Baroness Warsi claims that seven  tonnes of the plant arrive in 
Heathrow every week.

Baroness Warsi takes a less romantic view of the magic  plant. She 
claims that it is addictive and  carcinogenic, although the 
scientific evidence is  ambiguous. Admittedly, khat-chewing can 
trigger paranoia, hallucinations and constipation. (During 
a  short-lived ban on khat imposed by the former Marxist  regime in 
southern Yemen, sales of laxatives fell by 90  per cent.) But so can 
other things. Many Somali women  living in the UK apparently support 
the ban, which they hope will stop their husbands tripping all night 
and  snoozing all day, instead of job-hunting. Yet,  criminalising 
the unemployed sounds rather more like an  old Tory policy than a new one.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart