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.