It was with some dismay yet no surprise that I started to stumble across more and more news articles (Just Google and see) that yet another immigrant culture was starting to clash with good old American principals yet again. This time it wasn’t what has become the steady daily news making issue of Islamic immigrants assimilating into mainstream America, but this time it was about a cultural habit. An ancient habit common to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Qat chewing. Not unlike the good old boys of rural America chewing tobacco (and for lots of the same reasons) this activity has all manner of social and physiologic roles it plays in it’s respective societies. While embraced by some and reviled by others its use has been anchored by more than one culture. My own theory about the recent Ethiopian invasion of Somalia is that it had more to do with the Islamists banning qat usage thereby interrupting the plants flow than it did about personal freedoms and the threat of fundamental Islam. Call me crazy, it’s ok, I can take it.
I won’t take time to delve too deeply into Qat’s (Chat, Khat) history or pharmacology as this info is readily available, I can attest to some personal experience with it. Some may say it’s more akin to caffeine than methamphetamine I would disagree; yet I would be loath to classify it as the DEA does and put it in the same category as heroin. Therein lies for me the crux of the biscuit. This commonly used substance and the burgeoning Somali immigrant community stateside is now coming into conflict with the strict drug enforcement policies of the American government and in particular the DEA. While some in the Somali community know of the US policy towards this drug, they parley this knowledge along with the immense potential profit selling and trafficking to the less educated in their community. The net result is lots of innocent, unknowing, ill educated folks being arrested and standing trial and then facing conviction, jail time and if they’re lucky long probationary terms for merely engaging in behavior seen as culturally normal in their homelands. While ignorance of the law is one of the poorer defenses to use in court, the reality is that, most in the Somali community just don’t see the issue of qat usage as severely as do the DEA.
Until they’re arrested that is.
