Khat in Bristol: Banned drug’s still here – it’s just moved underground
BANNED drug khat is moving underground as police try to enforce new restrictions, according to its users.
Khat users told the Bristol Post the drug has increased in price and its use is moving behind closed doors.
The plant stimulant is traditionally chewed in the Horn of Africa but was prevalent among the Somali community of Bristol before the government made it a class C drug in July.
Police have recently started enforcing the ban properly after an initial grace period and have so far given three people warnings and one person has been cautioned.
But one user, a part-time student who also works in a taxi office, said the ban had not stopped people taking the drug but had made users criminals.
The 40-year-old man, who asked not to be named, said: “I have seen it being bought and sold and I know it comes through Heathrow every day.
“The difference is that now the people who take it are criminals and the government is losing the tax they used to make on it.”
He said nearly all of the estimated 30 mafrishes – cafes where khat was openly bought and chewed – in Bristol had been closed down, forcing users to take the drug in their homes instead.
Khat was also openly sold in some shops and grocers, leading to warnings that a ban would lead to unemployment.
But the owner of one shop, Naheem mini market, said: “It was only a small part of my business.”
He added that jobs would be lost elsewhere in the importation and the mafrish cafes. He said: “Some people got jobs. The unlucky ones are now on benefits.”
Abdul Farah, of community group Somali Resource Centre, said the ban seemed to have been effective.
He said: “We have seen very little issues since it has been banned. We haven’t seen people using it. It is possible that people still are but they would have no doubt gone underground.
“There may be individuals affected but they never employed a lot of people so the whole community has not been affected that much.
“With the ban it is so difficult to import it now because it has to be fresh and you have to consume it when it is green.”
An Avon and Somerset Police spokesperson said they were now enforcing the new rules on khat after a grace period following the introduction of the ban.
“We now police khat in the same way we deal with all other illegal substances.
“To date, three people have been given warnings for possession of khat and one person has been given a caution.”
Police in Bristol announced in September they had made their biggest seizure of khat since it became illegal nearly three months earlier.
Police officers in Easton took to Twitter to tell followers they had made their biggest seizure of the drug since the ban – along with a picture of the dried khat in sandwich bags.
Twenty-four bags of the dried substance, with a street value of £250, were seized at a property in Stapleton Road, Easton on Wednesday, but no arrests have been made in relation to the incident.
At the time of khat being made illegal, the Bristol Post spoke to people from the 10,000-strong Somali community who hailed the move as a watershed moment.
It was also later reported that the ban was increasing anti-social behaviour in Easton.