Khat and all that chat

A few weeks ago I took the train from Streatham to London Bridge. Not a particularly exciting event in its own right, rather a predictable and tedious chronicle of delays, cancellations and general discomfort.

What made this journey a little more notable was the accompaniment of a man acting, well, seriously strangely. As I sat under the aluminium canopy on Platform 2 (why oh why did they build the ‘waiting room’ on the platform to Sutton?!) idling away the minutes, a gentlemen with a weird walk and a bag of some sort of vegetable came and sat unnervingly close to me. There was no one else under the canopy at this time, so I was naturally repulsed at having such close human company without prior consultation.

He looked at me quite intensely while I pretended, badly, that I didn’t even realise he was there. He then started to find me extremely amusing, in a horror story sort of way. I really don’t look that funny, I promise. He reached into his bag, picked out a stringy green vegetable thing and started chewing on it. He looked at me again, laughed again, and repeated until the train finally turned up. It truly seemed to take an eternity.

I naturally boarded a different carriage and looked forward to a journey of solitude. At Tulse Hill the, our first stop, we were treated to a five minute wait. The train had performed too well and we all needed to be punished for it. After a couple of minutes I noticed my new friend writhing around on a bench in a fit of uncontrollable giggles. He had a stringy vegetable in his hand, half chewed. I know how to get into that state. I’ve done it. And it required drugs.

Although I never trained as a detective, I knew enough to know that he had been chewing khat, a vegetable that is chewed and a drug used commonly in the Somalian community (my new friend was of north African origin). I thought nothing of it, except that it looked like rather good fun.

By a somewhat remarkable coincidence, later that day I saw a tweet from my local MP, Chuka Umunna:

“Do you think the substance khat (which some people smoke) should be banned?”

Turns out Chuka had brought the subject up in parliament. I don’t know much about khat, but I do know about the harms of banning substances.

It is astonishing, that in 2010, we are still banning substances. Is government really so stupid as to think that banning substances does anything at all to address the social harm they bring? Is there any evidence what so ever that suggests that the prohibition of drugs in this country (not to mention America…) has dealt with the associated problems. Quite the opposite. The drugs trade in this country is riddled with gangs, and kids are killing kids on our streets as a result. And, god forbid, the middle classes are having their houses burgled by drug addicts trapped in an underworld. It really does make me quite angry.

Its not like there isn’t a precedent for thinking differently about drugs. Holland has been doing it for years (although worryingly the swing to the right in Dutch politics is looking as regressive as a ConDem budget). Less publicised are the decisions by both the Swiss and the Portugese governments to decriminalise drugs, soft and hard, in their respective countries. They are thinking differently. My controlling the distribution of drugs you stand a far better chance of dealing with the issues. It’s a free market in the drug trade. The government should be the Tesco of this market and kill off the shady late night convenience stores. I’m serious. Banning drugs doesn’t work. Period. If you are in any doubt have a walk round Brixton.

Lets not go down the road of banning Khat. Instead the government should try and understand its users, and the harms that the drug brings. But don’t for a second think that making a substance illegal deals with the issue. It simply criminalises a whole section of society who are already on the periphery in so many respects. They will carry on chewing khat. Like so many carry on with cannabis, cocaine, ecstacy, crack etc. Its time to think differently.

The mysterious tale of Streatham Green and the London Spade

“In 2005 Streatham Green won the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association 'London Spade' award for best public open space scheme in the capital” (source – Wikipedia)

Anyone who knows Streatham Green, and has also happened to have seen ANY of London’s other green spaces must surely be choking on their dinner right now.

Based on this evidence, the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association are clearly heavy LSD users. There is a reasonable chance they pick up their supplies in Streatham Green. In this context, their ludicrous decision to award the London Spade now seems to at least make a little sense.

For anyone who hasn’t had the pleasure to wander the lawns of this fabulous park, I will attempt to describe it. Words, however, can not do this place justice.

It is sandwiched (crammed) between one of the most deprived (but nonetheless ‘interesting’) parts of Streatham High Road, a ‘Chariots Roman Spa’, and two extremely busy bus stops trafficking people to the relative oasis of Croydon. A collection of desperate drunks hang around the concrete slabs (could these be seats?) recently installed as part of Streatham’s somewhat halted re-generation efforts by Lambeth council. Drugs are regularly peddled (it’s Brixton with none of the cool factor). Not so long ago one of the many Chinese takeaways facing the green was busted for selling Ketamine with its special chow mein. Traffic fumes fill the air. Oh, and it is about 10m x 10m large. This is not a place you come for a picnic. Or a walk. It is, in fact, a place you would walk a considerable distance, through dog shit, to avoid. It is a great place for people watching, however. If you like watching people urinating in public places.

I don’t want to sound too harsh – I love Streatham, and one of the most wonderful things about this place is its greenery. We do have some genuinely fantastic green space in Streatham. Streatham Common and Tooting Common are both special places. This makes it all the more insulting that Streatham Green is laughing in their faces.

No doubt someone has stolen the ‘prestigious’ London Spade. It is possibly committing horrendous sex acts on paying customers in Chariots Roman Spa.

I am not alone in my damning opinion. A google search for Streatham Green delivers to the lazy researcher the following astute assertions: ‘Streatham Green is criminal. In the best and worst sense of the term….Each time I come to kick it here someone tries to sell me hash…One time I saw a person get punched directly, point blank in the face.’

One day all of our parks will be awarded the London Spade. Just need to get those pesky trees cut down first. Pleasant places need not apply.

Welcome to Streatham

I’ve been living in the lovely Streatham for a year now. For those of you who don’t know, Streatham is a sizeable town in South London, forever described by loyalists as ‘near’ its rather cooler brethren – Brixton, Balham, Clapham, even Tooting on a good day. Streatham is famed for a number of notable associations – an infamous brothel, a hideous nightclub, and the queen of etiquette herself, Naomi Campbell, just to mention a few. Van Gogh even came here. Some say he chopped his ear off with a Streatham blade. Others say he was off his tits on Absinthe.

The word Streatham means ‘Hamlet on the Street’. Cute huh? Before arriving a year ago, upon telling an old friend in trendy Shoreditch I was moving to South London (the humanity!!) he replied “Gone for the big house in the burbs have you?” Yeah, how very Darling Buds of May it is around here. More like the Darling Buds of Kwik Fit.

For some reason, I do actually like it here. Streatham is the embarrassing friend you are afraid to introduce to your other, cooler friends. When you find yourself living in Streatham, you defend Streatham. Streatham needs you, and that sort of desperate dependency has its charm. We might not have the tube. We might not have a Waitrose. But we DO have two Lidls, twenty nail bars, a 99p stores and even a cheeky little 98p store. Entrepreneurship is not dead here (The Apprentice, eat your heart out.)

Us Streatamites (and yes, I know – a year in Rome does not, a Roman, make) pretend we don’t want the tube anyway. It’s crowded, expensive, there is no view, and it is simply too clichéd to live somewhere in London that features on the tube map. You can have your tube you ponces. I like my trains being cancelled due to ‘no member of train crew available. I like ‘Sunday services’.

Britain’s Worst Street!! (Streatham High Road picked up this rather dubious honour in 2002. Yes, maybe, but ‘The Longest High Street in Europe’ too, we proudly reply. And let’s face it, that’s what you want if you happen to have the worst street in Britain running through your neighbourhood like a fat filled smokers artery. For it to be really, really bloody long.

‘We had a John Lewis once!!!’ they cry (the real Streathamites, that is.) Yes, yes, I know. I am repeatedly reminded. My barber tells me, every single time I go for a hair cut. It gets a little tedious, this looking backwards to former glory. Before living in Streatham I was in Manchester. Manchester’s version of the Streatham John Lewis yarn is called the Hacienda. Get over it. Yeah we’ve got faded glory. And bugger all else. John Lewis was a wuss, it didn’t want to hang around. Wimpy did, and I love it for it. Square burgers are simply better than round ones. Period.

So that’s it. My virgin rant about Streatham. The first of many. South London, I love you. Now I’m just off to John Lewis to pick up some civic pride. Its on special offer there.