This is the second Somali to be sentenced to jail and two other foreigners are awaiting trial.

I find the jail sentences rather harsh. Khat is chewed freely in Ethiopia, the Horn of Africa and Yemen and is very much part of the cultural scene, for males.

Khat is a flowering plant native to East Africa and south-west Arabia. Chewing the fresh leaves releases cathinone, which breaks down to produce cathine and norephedrine. Both cathinone and cathine are in the same class as the stimulant amphetamines. Khat chewing induces a sense of euphoria but the effects wear off in 15-30 minutes.

The beneficial effects and the dangers are both overrated.

WHO has classified khat as a drug of abuse producing mild to moderate psychological dependence but so does the tobacco leaf.

In the United Kingdom, khat is a controlled substance. The plant itself is uncontrolled but cathine and cathinone are class C drugs.

When serving on secondment to the Arab armed forces of South Arabia, modern-day Yemen, in the 1960s I was once invited by the Amir to his khat parlour to chew fresh khat leaves harvested in Dhala on the Amiri highlands.

The other guests may have experienced euphoria but all I got was a raging thirst and a bloated feeling.