Cynthia Dizikes, Los Angeles Times, January 3, 2009
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For centuries the “flower of paradise” has been used legally in East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as a stimulant and social tonic.
But in the United States khat is illegal, and an increased demand for the plant in cities such as Washington and San Diego is leading to stepped up law enforcement efforts and escalating clashes between narcotics officers and immigrants who defend their use of khat as a time-honored tradition.
In the last few years, San Diego, which has a large Somali population, has seen an almost eight-fold increase in khat seizures. Nationally, the amount of khat seized annually at the country’s ports of entry has grown from 14 metric tons to 55 in about the last decade.
Most recently, California joined 27 other states and the federal government in banning the most potent substance in khat, and the District of Columbia is proposing to do the same.
“It is a very touchy subject. Some people see it like a drug; some people see it like coffee,” said Abdulaziz Kamus, president of the African Resource Center in Washington, D.C. “You have to understand our background and understand the significance of it in our community.”
Increased immigration from countries such as Ethiopia, Yemen and Somalia has fueled the demand in this country and led to a cultural conflict.
{snip}
But some experts are not convinced that its health and social effects are so benign. A World Health Organization report found that consumption can lead to increased blood pressure, insomnia, anorexia, constipation and general malaise. The report also said that khat can be addictive and lead to psychological and social problems.
“It is not coffee. It is definitely not like coffee,” said Garrison Courtney, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration. “It is the same drug used by young kids who go out and shoot people in Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan. It is something that gives you a heightened sense of invincibility, and when you look at those effects, you could take out the word ‘khat’ and put in ‘heroin’ or ‘cocaine’.”
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But the world supply of khat is exploding. Countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya now rely on it as a major cash crop to bolster their economies. Khat is Ethiopia’s second largest export behind coffee.
Khat usage has grown so much in San Diego that Assemblyman Joel Anderson (R-San Diego) wrote a 2008 bill that added cathinone and its derivative cathine to California’s list of Schedule II drugs along with raw opium, morphine and coca leaves.
As of Thursday, Anderson’s bill made possession of khat a misdemeanor in California, punishable by up to one year in county jail and a $1,000 fine. Possession of the leaf with intent to sell is a felony that carries a three-year maximum sentence in state prison.
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Khat leaves are sold attached to thick stalks or dried like tea leaves. A bundle of 40 leafed twigs costs about $28 to $50.
The plant’s cost has been linked to family problems, including domestic abuse, said Starlin Mohamud, a Somali immigrant who is completing a dissertation on khat at San Diego State University.
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Original article
Email
Cynthia Dizikes
at cynthia.dizikes@latimes.com .
(Posted on January 5, 2009)
Comments
“San Diego, which has a large Somali population…”
That seems to be about every city nowadays.
Another illegal drug added to more misery in our country….and no one to stop this. OUR people who are paid to stop this, have rolled over and pretend to be blind, deaf and dumb….well they are dumb anyhow!! We could have stamped out drugs years ago but kickbacks were too good a thing for our politicians to pass up…what a shame…but hey, my mom used to say, what goes around comes around, they will pay someday!!
When on a day-trip to London in December ‘07 I saw an african man sat hunched up on a bench outside St Pauls Cathedral, using his mouth to pull off the khat leaves from their stem and then slowly munching on them whilst eying passers by, warily. Enough said?
Isn’t this great? The leftist whackos have pushed people on us who don’t know how to flush a toilet; keep chickens in their kitchen cabinets; abuse defenseless little animals and ritualistically slaughter them in an inhumane way; circumsize their women; stone women to death for adultery, beat them mercilessly if they’re caught alone with a man; now they want us to import dope addicts I guess because they feel we don’t have enough of our own.
It seems like they should be satisfied that they pushed to allow illegal TB infected aliens to cough on us every day and help them to move 30 per house and trash our neighborhoods, but obviously not.
My, my, my, how important they feel it is to push more and more diversity on us.
And there are STILL some people on this forum that believe we won’t have civil war if the economy collapses?
Compared to this ongoing deterioration, civil war would be an improvement. At least it wouldn’t be nearly as destructive to our neighborhoods and way of life.
Khat, the original crack.
It seems there are more Somalis in America than in Somalia!
Khat produces “a general malaise” in users. This seems true. Unlike coffee, which makes people alert, khat seems to make people useless.
In the horn of Africa, khat is probably a good way to pass the days in idleness. In the Western world, it is incompatible with our work ethic.
“Some people see it like a drug; some people see it like coffee,” said Abdulaziz Kamus, president of the African Resource Center in Washington, D.C. “You have to understand our background and understand the significance of it in our community.”
No, I don’t.
I don’t have to understand the “significance” of, and I don’t have to “respect”, and I don’t have to “make allowances” for, any of your former cultural peculiarities.
YOU have chosen to immigrate HERE. YOU get to do the adapting to OUR community standards. Back in your glorious homeland, it may have been the custom to hang around the marketplace chewing your “harmless stimulant” and gossiping with the other loser-men of your tribe while your 3 wives tended the goats, worked the garden-plot, and kept the predators away from the chickens while handling all the cooking, cleaning, washing, and raising the children. But you chose to come here, buddy. New life, new laws, new customs, new responsibilities.
Tell us again, please…someone…anyone…just what is this great “benefit” these immigrants bring?! Where is the “enrichment?” What a hideous farce…
I’m glad that coffee wasn’t recently discovered or else the DEA’s propaganda division DEA would undoubtedly spew press releases about “Java Madness” and “young kids who drink coffee and who go out and shoot people. It is something that gives you a heightened sense of invincibility.”
People who blame dried vegetable products and firearms (wood and steel) for human evil should be stayed from the halls of government power.
As far as I am concerned, Tobacco, Alcohol and Firearms should be the name of a convenience store in a free white ethno-state, not a government agency.
I’ve been told by Westerners who have used it that Khat is a mild stimulant more like coffee or betel nut than cocaine or amphetamine.
Whwn I was in the British military the RAF in ADEN (in 1962-4), which is in South Yemen (a very backward country now cursed with many terrorist as in Pakistan) at the entrance to the Red Sea, as Muslims are not allowed to drink alcohol, they chew Qat (and use other drugs) or Khat as it is knowm. It is a leaf that users can be easily identified as being so because it greatly stains the mouth, tongue and teeth green. We had Arabs who had horrendous road accidents driving into other vehicles at high speed because it is a drug that acts like Marijuana, or even worse. It should be treated as such and be declared illegal with the same penalties as heroin, cocaine etc, and any cries from these Arabs / Muslims of their being deprived of their cultural heritage, ignored.
“San Diego, which has a large Somali population…”
That seems to be about every city nowadays.
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Yes, it does seem to be the case. There are Somali populations all over the United States, Canada, Europe, and Australia. Somalis also have a tendency to flock to all-white areas that were never before affected by third-world immigration (Lewiston, Maine anyone?). I personally think this is a plot, because given the Somalis’ birthrate, it may be that they’ll reach critical mass in developed countries, and who knows what may happen then? I wonder who’s behind the plot, though… Somalis don’t seem to be the smartest people around, so perhaps it’s western-hating white liberals who are engineering the whole thing.
Tell us again, please…someone…anyone…just what is this great “benefit” these immigrants bring?! Where is the “enrichment?” What a hideous farce…
Posted by HH at 11:42 PM on January 5
Oh, it’s a benefit alright. To the elites behind the unending wave of non-white immigration, legal and illegal. Yes, it’s a plot, obviously. And yes, how can anyone doubt the “government” is in on it? The more chaos that ensues, the less attention we can pay to the greedy, self worshipping elites. At least that’s what they hope.
“In the horn of Africa, khat is probably a good way to pass the days in idleness. In the Western world, it is incompatible with our work ethic.”
An immigrant from Yemen told me that the major reason for using Khat in Yemen, Somalia etc is to escape the midday heat. It’s 115 from about 11/am to 4/pm duing the summer. So they get up at 4/am and work till about 9am. Then they start with the Khat that helps them pass out during the worst of the heat.
They wake up about 5/pm to work again. They pretty much stay up most of the night during the summer heat.
So it’s not necessary here. But it is addictive.
I assume that immigrant activists are already pushing to make Khat addicts eligible for disability and free public housing.
All these immigrants,and yet it is impossible for a white professional couple to get into the US. What a bright future for our race.
Matt says that Somalis aren’t the smartest of people; this is probably true in Western societies, where Somali enterprise is modest or non-existent. However, Somalis seem to be driving a significant proportion of the taxis in Minneapolis.
Oddly enough, in South Africa the Somalis are bitterly hated and resented for being more astute and enterprising than the local Bantu. During the recent pogroms / impromptu ethnic cleansing in Black townships Somalis were especial targets for the fury of the township mobs.
As for qat / khat, enough of it chewed for long enough - a time-consuming and not altogether agreeable process for the novice - speeds up the brain very agreeably - just like regular pharmaceutical speed does. Yet it doesn’t speed up the body at all, unlike - say - snorted cocaine. As for being addictive, I can’t say it’s more addictive than marijuana or red wine.
Probably the worst thing about khat is that it’s time-wasting in a society in which time is money. It’s also very expensive in relation to the user’s income. There are people in Yemen who spend a quarter or a half of their income on the plant while their children are ill-clad and malnourished. The same used to be said of the Irish and the demon drink, of course.
Has anyone tried growing khat in the U.S.A., I wonder. There are those who say that President Richard Nixon was the father of the American home-grown marijuana industry - a splendid example of the ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’. Parts of California and New Mexico ought to have approximately the right conditions for the enterprising khat farmer.
Don’t you people realize narcotics always get through
“San Diego, which has a large Somali population…”
That seems to be about every city nowadays.
Yes, based on my statistically representive sample of one (1) city I can confirm it’s true. Even though I live on the other side of the Atlantic, even this unnamed Nordic capital city seems to have an ever-increasing population of Somalis.
It is somehow strange to witness the change in one’s everyday life. When I went to the shopping mall in the eastern part of the city, I couldn’t help but to notice there were much, much more Somalis everywhere than only a couple of years ago, when there were almost none. And many of them were of course pushing baby carriages etc. Year by year, part by part the region seems to be turning into more of an outpost of Africa.
