A legal anomaly allowing migrants to use the drug khat should be addressed in the upcoming drug reform, forensic expert Mario Mifsud told The Sunday Times of Malta.
A former director of the National Forensic Lab, Dr Mifsud is currently advising parliament on “the much needed” revision of the country’s drug laws.
He told this newspaper that a loophole allowing khat use had been highlighted more than five years ago but was never addressed.
“The plant’s active ingredients cathinone, cathine and norephedrine were made illegal in back 2006. However, a few years later I told a court that the plant had not been added to the schedule of illegal plants. Nothing has changed and it is still not illegal to be in possession of the drug,” he said.
Catha eduli, a sub-Saharan psychoactive shrub commonly referred to as khat, is a popular stimulant among the local migrant community.
Dr Mifsud said that although there appears to be a steady flow of the substance into the island, consumption remains mostly confined to Somalis and Eritreans who have it brought over by family and friends living in the UK.
“The majority of our khat comes in from Heathrow. There is a market there where it is sold on Thursday and a few days later it arrives here in Luqa, usually in suitcases weighing 20kg,” he said.
In 2011 a record number of suitcases stuffed with the plant were seized by local authorities in an attempt to clamp down on the substance. In more than a dozen antidrug probes, the police discovered bags filled with bundles of the dried plant, wrapped in banana leaves.
Mr Mifsud said the plants were often rotten by the time they arrived on the island.
“Khat is not that big a problem. You need to take so much of it to feel any effect and by the time it gets to Malta, most of it would have lost its effect,” he said.
Despite this, a UNCRH report on integration last year had found that khat abuse across Europe was a leading contributor towards migrants’ inability to integrate.
Saleh, a 27-year-old Eritrean living in Marsa told The Sunday Times of Malta that chewing on khat was as normal to him as smoking a cigarette. “I have been doing this since I was a boy back home. It is very common for men to do it,” he said reaching for his bundle out of a plastic bag which carrying his water and a pair of torn football shoes.
He said he buys his khat from a Somali who receives monthly packages from a Maltese man.
“This is business for everybody. I buy my khat like other people buy other things. I do not drink, it is against my religion, but this is normal,” he said.
Dr Mifsud, however, believes Saleh’s supply might soon run dry.
He said the plant was made illegal in the UK and Holland earlier this year which had effectively tied a noose around the local supply of the plant.
“I’m quite sure that in the near future we won’t have any khat in Malta anymore,” he said, adding that a review of the legal situation was still necessary.