Khat on the ABC

[Undergrounder]

I just caught the end of it, but there was some somalian lady on TV pleading with a gaggle of news crews to ban the importation of Khat into Australia, saying it makes somalian men aggressive. The voice-over likened Khat to an 'amphetamine-like' high. A statement from the govt. said if a submission were made, it would consider banning the current 5kg import limit on Khat.

Edited July 23, 2008 by Undergrounder

[Jesus On Peyote]

Hey undergrounder, i just saw that too, was about to make a thread but you beat me to it.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story...5006785,00.html

Here we go again, Stock up people. ;-/

Edited July 23, 2008 by Jesus On Peyote

[Torsten]

submission, not admission.

[Undergrounder]

submission, not admission.

thankyou professor, now dyou want me to write it out 50 times for homework?

[apothecary]

Bah, who orchestrates this shit?

They want to stop the 5kg per head import limit, which means to me that currently there is enough demand to send a head to one of the mass-producing countries to bring back their small personal limit for illegal resale and the exhorbitant "retail" price that entails?

If such a ban succeeds I doubt Perth suburban streets are going to be able to supply demand

[planthelper]

Here we go again, Stock up people. ;-/

i guess you know it anyway, but one cannot stock up on qat.

only fresh material, does the trick.

[2b]

i guess you know it anyway, but one cannot stock up on qat.

only fresh material, does the trick.

I thought that was the case as well, but the woman on the TV had a bag of dried leaf ? I also doubt that you would be able to import any fresh vegitable matter into Australia. So it looks like the Somalis' are importing and getting off on dried leaf matter.

[incognito]

what a wank. why not ban the import of coffee instead?

[Jesus On Peyote]

Yea its a bummer, linked to supposed abuses which means if they look at thell ban it pretty quickly with no real research into it like they've done with the rest lately.

Im not too sure on the quality of dried qat, but you can also stock up on qat plants.

[Yeti101]

Yea its a bummer, linked to supposed abuses which means if they look at thell ban it pretty quickly with no real research into it like they've done with the rest lately.

If they think Khat makes men bad news, wait till they try some synthetic amphetamines instead.

Seriously though, if all of these abusive men stopped chewing khat, I would not think that all of them would stop being abusive. I have never chewed a massive amount myself, but I had not found it intoxicating enough to significantly effect my behaviour either way.

[ydarb]

the plants will probably remain legal i hope. SAB and herbalistics seem to be out of stock though.

[2b]

Have to agree with you Yeti , i've chewed heaps and been pretty dissapointed in the results. To be honest i took to my plant with the hedge shears and cut it down to waist high last summer. I had a massive amout of leaf matter and after chewing as much of the choice tender new growth as i could i gave up and put it all in the compost bin.

Maybe it's just one of those things that you have to work at to get results, but coffee is by far a more effective stimulant for me.

[t st tantra]

from what i've been told you make the same mistake as most,chewing.

apparently you should just put it in your cheek and forget it,it does its work better without interference.

a quid can last up to 2 hours.

read that in kenya they grow red and claim its the strongest in the world.

they only used the stems!

t s t .

[Lachy]

Seriously though, if all of these abusive men stopped chewing khat, I would not think that all of them would stop being abusive.

I'm inclined to agree. Whilst the khat may make a bit of a difference - and I strongly suspect it does - if someone's a violent arsehole to begin with, that's the real problem, not the drug.

[t st tantra]

and if his wifes a nagging complaining bitch........ he may end up being described as abusive?

life is complicated.....drugs may help.....lol

t s t .

[Lachy]

life is complicated.....drugs may help....

Or may just worsen the situation. I'm really not sure that self-medication is the best way to deal with problems of this sort at all.

[Vertmorpheus]

Very sage advice Lachy.

Should I ever become abusive, or end up living with a shrew, I will make sure to be medicated only by others. For preference, those willing to do it for money.

I reckon if someone sat around jobless, marginalised, product of a torturous background, stranger in a strange land,going from a dominant position at home to a kind of untrusted subjugated position as a refugee in another country so your house is the only place you can be The Man, ingesting vast amounts of stimulants, they just might turn into not very nice people at times.Same people with more get up n go, for sure.

But if they're upfor sitting around wasted anyway, khat maybe a better alternative than say, a carton of half-warm VB's and a 50 of hydro, or a few grams of cheap wizz. Then again if a well adjusted person hung out with family and friends having a chat over a bowl of leaves, whats the harm going to be?

Might have to see if the complainant isn't fixing to open a khat farm anytime soon Half sister planning on cornering the local somali meth market... geeze I'm a cynic....

I'd love some cuttings, but now worry it might make me beat on my nearest n dearest. Esp the red stuff but being red, it'd have to make you even angrier, surely?

So worrying, I'm off to buy a carton and a 6 pack of redbulls and a bottle of OP rum to take the edge off ...

VM

[Torsten]

I thought that was the case as well, but the woman on the TV had a bag of dried leaf ?

Women don't chew khat, but they make tea from the dried leaves. Even though the cathinone would have degraded in these, the much less potent cathine is still active.

I also doubt that you would be able to import any fresh vegitable matter into Australia. So it looks like the Somalis' are importing and getting off on dried leaf matter.

No, khat is being imported fresh. I think it gets fumigated on entry. It is probably a couple of days old on arrival, but that is OK if it is transported cold. Lower temps slow down the degradation drastically.

Meth is so much cheaper than khat so I wouldn't be surprised if meth takes hold in that community as soon as khat is banned.

Tantra - I disagree about the chewing. I think the material needs to be chewed a few times and then it is best rested in the mouth. Without any chewing the actives won't escape the tough leaf structures. The soft 'bark' of the water shoots is the sweetest and is often preferred to the leaves. This MUST be chewed somewhat to even get off the stick.

[Lachy]

Should I ever become abusive, or end up living with a shrew, I will make sure to be medicated only by others. For preference, those willing to do it for money.

Good call, VM. I should have been more clear - I'm not sure medication of any sort is the best way to treat that. Drugs may buffer or supress problems, but they don't fix the causes at the heart of the matter, and such problems are very rarely simple in nature.

Then again if a well adjusted person hung out with family and friends having a chat over a bowl of leaves, whats the harm going to be?

And again, I agree totally. I strongly believe that it's the individual, moreso than the drug, that determines the outcome. Set and setting - a happy, well balanced person taking a drug in pleasant, comfortable environment will probably have a positive experience. Give the same drug to a paranoid, stressed or aggressive person in an unhappy environment and the results will likely be negative.

One aspect of all this that interests me is how khat could in fact bring members of a community together and strengthen bonds between individuals. Instead of taking a drug purely for its pharmacological effect, it becomes more of a social gathering, akin to how kava is used.

Edited July 24, 2008 by Lachy

[Torsten]

thankyou professor, now dyou want me to write it out 50 times for homework?

if you don't know the difference, then yes.

Admission is something one would expect from a user, while submission is a technical process usually done by a stakeholder such as the drug squad, medical group, etc

Big difference - luckily, as admissions are easily made, yet submissions require someone to actually bother filling in the paperwork. Mind you a nagging complaining bitch might just do.

Why doesn't she just leave him. if an aussie ocker starts drinking then we also expect the woman to leave rather than to ban alcohol.

[Jesus On Peyote]

Yea, the abusiveness report which this whole thing is being based on is pretty bad, all propaganda.

Torsten, she did leave him, but shes still pissed off, saying that its because of the khat that they broke up.

Edited July 24, 2008 by Jesus On Peyote

[Torsten]

Torsten, she did leave him, but shes still pissed off, saying that its because of the khat that they broke up.

sorry, missed that bit.

so I wonder how many people call for alcohol to be banned after they leave their partners? Could even be that she is just pissed cos women aren't allowed to chew khat.

[Undergrounder]

if you don't know the difference, then yes.

Admission is something one would expect from a user, while submission is a technical process usually done by a stakeholder such as the drug squad, medical group, etc

Big difference - luckily, as admissions are easily made, yet submissions require someone to actually bother filling in the paperwork. Mind you a nagging complaining bitch might just do.

Chill out with the condescendence man, given you actually know something about these things i just expected your early input on this thread to be more helpful re: Khat, instead of jumping on English mistakes. Yes i did know the difference, but you don't. A submission may be a formal document, or as you say, involve 'paperwork', but that's not strictly necessary. It's content could take any form, supporting or conceding a position, an application, anything. The content of an admission , however, infers a degree of self responsibility or guilt, or in a legal sense, conceding a fact. It might be normally made informally, but what form it's in or who's it from isn't a defining feature. You could have a submission made by a user, for instance, but it wouldn't be an admission if it didn't somehow concede a fact, or infer self-responsibility or guilt.

Did i do something to annoy you? you don't normally nitpick posts like that.

Edited July 24, 2008 by Undergrounder

[Torsten]

Did i do something to annoy you? you don't normally nitpick posts like that.

Na, nothing at all. And I wasn't realy nitpicking. I read a lot of legal crap so I have a good understanding of how things like the kava scheduling, new customs schedules, new drug schedules, etc come about. Most people who watched the segment or read this thread probably don't know that it is actually often the noise made by some busy bodies with an axe to grind that will restrict the freedoms of the rest of the population. Many of these laws come about as a result of submissions, but some do actually come about as a result of admissions, which is why I felt it important to make sure everyone else got the difference. Your minor mistake provided a good platform to try and address this issue. nothing personal