Conservatives promise to ban largely unknown drug

If Westmonster was to say the word 'khat' to you, chances are you'd either assume a) that we'd lost our ability to spell the common term for the domestic Felis Catus, or b) we were describing some girl called 'Catherine' who'd moved to Shoreditch and decided to write her name that way in order to fit in with the legions of strutting, self-obsessed media wankers who consider wearing a Trilby at a jaunty angle to be the height of cultural dissent.

Ahem. Anyway, you've probably guessed that we're not referring to either of those examples. Oh, no - Khat is infact a drug which is chewed in leaf form and can induce crazy hallucinations and increased awareness and stamina. And - before you yell 'awesome', put down your bong and run out to find some - you should be aware that it's having a particularly nasty effect on certain sectors of the UK population.

The drug originates from both East Africa and parts of the Arabian peninsula, and is favoured mostly in Britain by those in the Somali community. Net result? Both employment and academic achievement is plummeting among young Somalis. Shadow minister Sayeeda Warsi is distinctly worried about this and wants to take action:

''All communities need to be treated equally under the rule of law irrespective of their background and we must never fail to take action on issues like khat because the prevalence of the drug in the UK is relatively low or because it is restricted to some minority communities. When any section of society is under threat, affected or underachieving, we must all stand up. That is why a future Conservative government would legislate to make khat a classified drug.''

According to Warsi, the government has been too afraid to act so far because they wouldn't want to 'offend' a minority community. With increased support for a ban rising from groups such as the Somali Well Women Project, this is an issue that looks set to grow and grow ...

Written by C J Davies on 15 Jun 2008 6:52 PM. Permalink