Last year we revealed the increasing social-problems the legal stimulant ‘khat’ was causing among Britain’s East African community.
Users chew the leaves of the khat plant then swallow the juice, inducing an amphetamine-style high. Khat is already illegal in a number of European countries. Now the Dutch government, traditionally a liberal regime, has announced it is also to ban the drug, citing health and social reasons. But a Somali community leader in London, who vigorously campaigns for khat to be banned in the UK, believes there are other reasons for the Dutch move.
41 year-old Abukar Awali is a community engagement officer at a comprehensive school. He’s also a former khat addict who spent many hours chewing the drug in London chew-rooms, or ‘mafrishes’. He’s concerned there are sinister links between UK mafrishes and the radicalisation of recruits to the proscribed Somali terrorist group, the Shabaab (the ‘youth’).
