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Banning Khat the Right Move.
Saturday Nov. 18, 2006
8:30 AM
By mathaba.net
With the lack of law and order in Somalia for the last sixteen or so years, many drugs chief among which is Khat, have found a permanent home in the Somali nation's psyche. Millions of badly needed shillings or US Dollars are wasted everyday in the importation and consumption of this narcotic leaf both in Somalia and Ogaden.
While the Somalis everywhere from Ogaden to Somalia are busy munching on the leafy narcotic drug under the afternoon shade everyday, Kenyan and Ethiopian entrepreneurs have had a field day in collecting unparalleled profits they have never seen before the start of the Somali civil strife.
Not only does the importation of Khat deprive the local economies hardly needed cash and hard currency but this imported Khat negatively impacts all facets of familial life. There are many documented cases of families going hungry while either the father or the mother, a new phenomenon, spend the family's meager resources towards buying Khat.
In the June 2006 issue of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the effects of the consumption of Khat were documented scientifically. According to the lead researchers Dr Sagar Saha and Dr Clare Dollery, long term [Khat] use results in increasing risk of heart attack, liver damage as well gingivitis and tooth loss. Research also indicates [they add] that heavy khat chewing increases the risk of esophageal cancer.
Somalis everywhere have seen the ills of Khat. There is not a single Somali family that has not experienced the side effects of Khat either directly or indirectly. Worse many places in the western world such as the United States of America have started to rigorously enforce the drug statutes in the Common Law, which criminalizes the importation and the consumption of Khat.
Considering all the ills of Khat and its health and societal impact, we welcome the recent total ban imposed on both the importation and the consumption of Khat by the rulers of many parts of Somalia . Although difficult at first attempt, we believe that both the money and the time spent on the consumption of Khat can be better spent towards the resolution of both personal as well as societal problems faced by the Somalia nation. |
