Let’s think of a future without miraa

While miraa (khat) plays a critical economic role for households and traders involved in its cultivation and sale, its production and final consumption has many negative effects that far outweigh any apparent gains.

Yet even as Britain has seen the need to ban miraa, here in Kenya, there’s no serious discussion on the adverse effects of miraa useon individuals, households, communities and the country.

Miraa is indeed a drug as rightly classified by World Health Organisation since 1989 and locally by Nacada.

Social negative consequences of miraa use include high divorce rates, prostitution, neglect of family, especially in provision of education, low self-esteem and under-achievement among the persons. Miraa contributes to theft by its users to satisfy their craving.
Its adverse effects on health include tooth decay, lack of appetite and insomnia leading to psychosis, irritability and violence.

Users of miraa normally give priority to buying it over food for the households. This situation leads to high rates of food insecurity and malnutrition. Thus miraa is known to be a drain on critical household income of the poor.

While no in-depth study has been done in Kenya on the loss of livelihoods, human capital and man hours as a result of use of miraa, it is evident that were such a study to be conducted, it would reveal a shockingly huge loss. The biggest national asset is our human capital and for sure miraa is a drain and an enemy to our human capital asset.

The man hour loss from self-induced addiction will compromise our development at all levels, a situation which might even exacerbate current iniquities and poverty.

To say the least, the socio-economic destruction of lives and livelihoods resulting from khat use far outweighs the perceived economic and the concerns of the farmers in Meru County who can diversify to horticulture farming like their counterparts in Kirinyaga County.

There is a need to use the currently available arable land for cultivation of food instead of miraa. Provision can be made to introduce high value alternatives to miraa. Horticultural production would be a credible alternative which would fetch miraa farmers the same level of income, if not more.

I strongly believe that immediate steps should be embarked on with the ultimate objective of eliminating the use of miraa. In doing this, we in Kenya will only be doing the responsible thing with the benefits accruing to our people.

We need to embark on a multi-pronged strategy for discouraging use of miraa that involves the media, community campaigns, age limits on usage and provision of alternative means of livelihood.

We could be approaching the beginning of the end of unrestricted use of miraa since going by recent trends where countries like Britain and the Netherlands have imposed a ban on khat, there is a likelihood that this will be picked up by other countries which are major miraa market destinations, ultimately leading to its diminished cultural and economic acceptability and a future without miraa.

It is time leaders engaged on objective discourse as opposed to reactive rhetoric.

Mr Abdullahi Diriye is Wajir South MP

Source: DailyNation