You Can Make a Difference

Dear friends,

Right now the DC Council is considering wasting time and money on criminalizing a substance called khat.

Khat has effects similar to a cup of coffee. Tell them that criminalizing khat is wasteful and unnecessary!

Email the DC Council

What if you woke up one morning and suddenly your daily cup of coffee was illegal?

It probably sounds like a joke, but don't be too sure.

Even as the rest of the country is beginning to rethink its drug policies, DC is considering a bill that would take the drug war to an even more ridiculous extreme.

Right now, the DC council is considering pouring countless hours and your tax-payer dollars into banning a substance that has effects similar to a cup of coffee.

For thousands of years, East African communities have carried on the custom of chewing or making tea with a plant called khat. There is no good reason for the Council to single out this one community by banning a harmless plant that comes from their home country.

This ban is a mistake, but today you can do something to stop it: Write to the DC Council today and urge them to stop the prohibition of khat.

This ban is up for a discussion on June 30, so your letter now could make all the difference.

In just a few minutes, you can help defend our local communities from needless harassment and discrimination. Thank you for joining us in this fight!

Sincerely,

Naomi Long
Director, DC Metro Project
Drug Policy Alliance Network

As if we don’t already have enough crime problems to worry about here in the Nation's Capital, the D.C. City Council is trying to create one out of thin air. As we reported in Friday's Drug War Chronicle:

Last fall, at the urging of DC US Attorney Jeffrey Taylor, Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) introduced a proposal to criminalize fresh khat as a Schedule I drug, as it is under federal law. The DC City council is currently considering the proposal as part of its 2009 Omnibus Crime Bill and is likely to act on the measure before its session ends July 15.

Khat use is such a total non-problem that many people don't even know what it is, thus I should probably explain that khat is a mild stimulant used similarly to coffee in parts of East Africa. It isn't dangerous or particularly popular in the U.S., so the drug's prohibition under federal law can be attributed almost entirely to ignorance and racism. Seriously, the arguments against khat are so weak and sparse that law enforcement officials have resorted to the factually-vacant implication that khat might be funding terrorism.

Tragically, the D.C. City Council has thus far failed to grasp the absurdity of all this and will be banning khat entirely within a matter of weeks if we don't stop them. If you live in D.C. please click here to tell the council that prohibiting khat doesn’t make sense.

For hundreds, if not thousands, of years, residents of the Horn of Africa and the southern Arabian Peninsula have partaken of khat, an evergreen plant native to the region.

Khat, a shrub that grows in East Africa, has been used for centuries as a mild stimulant in the region, with a high similar to that obtained by drinking a lot of tea or coffee.