This has been an ongoing saga since 2001 the Somali presence have organised themselves on Gleneagle Road. Since then there have been complaints of anti-social behaviour, illegally parked in the red routes and double parked. The loud, noisy and intimidating presence of large groups of men on the pavement outside the cafe's are a particular nuisance. The clearly visible open sale and widespread use of Khat has a negative impact to the groups behaviour.
Cathinone and cathine are the main ingredients of the plant. Both are class C drugs in the UK, but the plant khat itself is not classified and can be bought openly in shops.
Cathinone is almost identical to amphetamines and it is this that creates a high. It's known to cause mental health problems like psychosis and depression.
Imagine a gang of men and youths, high as kites, on your doorstep, this is daily right up until after midnight. There have been times the police have been called due to fights between the men/youths. Is this what we want for our community?
Why are the police and community safety officers choosing to neglect this?
ASB in Streatham
I agree! we need to rid this island of the anti-social drug culture that's taken hold! Round us we have the same problem with double parking, people yelling in the street, people being obnoxious to others and it's all down to legally purchased, but dangerous drugs available out there and being sold quite openly anytime night and day. People go into places just off the High Road and buy...... alcohol, drink it and come out high as a kite and cost us a fortune with the policing presence needed to contain it. Gotta be gotten rid of. Yesterday.
Then there's the pervasive narcotic, said to be hundreds of times more addictive than crack cocaine and costs us billions each year with the treatment having to be meted out by the NHS. Yep, that's right - nicotine and cigarettes have to go.
But to really send a message we need to rid Britain of the dirty couple that act in symphony together causing distress, anti-social behaviour and can even cause traffic accidents by people higher than a kite! One is known as 3,7- dihydro-1,3,7-trimethyl-1H-purine-2,6-dione (Also known by the alias 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine) and is said to be almost as addictive as heroin! When used in conjunction with 2,3 crystalline disaccharide the effects are amplified. Write your MP, call the police if you hear about its use as it's really pervading society nowadays. If they don't understand, or ask you to spell it out you may have to tell them they also go by their common names: coffee and sugar. Need to be banned.
Now, I'm sure you've already grasped that my tongue is firmly in my cheek in the three paragraphs above but the three (4?) named substances are all more powerful than Khat and all are perfectly legal and have been consumed on this island for millenia (or centuries in the case of ciggies).
Furthermore, a quick butcher's with the search form above would've shown that actually the panel had a presentation almost two years ago on the use of khat by the Somali community, its effects and the policy on this going forward. It stated clearly that there is no correlation between its use and criminality, and that, in fact, the levels of criminality is somewhat lower amongst the Somalian community in South London than amongst the native born population. Banning it would be counter-productive and very expensive as France, Germany and elsewhere that's done this have found to their cost.
But see, thing is, I was with you, thinking there might be a legitimate issue we might need to look into till I read this in the book linked to on Google:
Khat use, it soon became evident, was not the only complaint....Other residents harboured grievances about the "large number of foreign men" appearing in their neighbourhood. (page 149 para. 2)
That's not only a pathetic attempt to construct an ad hominem argument bordering on racism, it's actually written by someone that clearly has never set a foot in Streatham! You could say that about any neighbourhood in Streatham, not just the Dip. There are now more spoken languages in London than any other city in the world (just passed LA for that) and there are more in Lambeth than any other borough. If people in Streatham don't like foreigners, they really, REALLY picked the wrong part of the UK to live in.
Anti-social men harassing local women? This is actually witnessed by myself on a daily basis by British men employed by the building trades. So shall we ban builders, then? One of our PCSOs is a Somalian; there are three leaders from the Somalian community on our Safer Neighbourhoods Panel - shall I put these views to them? Sorry but this is skirting the fringes of the apropos to select out one segment of the population for opprobrium and I can't see a compelling case for bringing the police into the equation. As above the pots and kettles (to stretch a metaphor) look an awfully lot alike.
Sorry.
Clearly a case of verbal
Clearly a case of verbal diorreah
At the though of hinting at racism clearly did not read the initial comments, the issue here is that antisocial behaviour, noise at night with clear dissregard to residents who like myself have a day job which requires me to have unbroken sleep to perform in this environment.
There is an old saying, do unto thy neighbour......
You clearly agree with this behaviour so why don't you give me your address and I will round up 50 or more people, we will all get off our face and hang around outside your front door every day, shout to eachother, bring our cars, set our alarms of, peep our horns, play our stereos loud so you can hear them in the back rooms of your house, fight and continue this while you are trying to sleep. It's not the best environment when you are trying to give young children the best start in life!
This has nothing to do with race, I don't care what colour or country they are from, I would have the same issues if they were white which some of them are...I'm all for integration. The race card is pulled all too easily to divert attention from ongoing problems!
EDIT: moved to General
EDIT: moved to General Discussion as this is not an announcement but a discussion point.
Also tags were edited to be tags and for accuracy.
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The Admins
To be clear
The statements about racism had to do with statements in the book you quoted before you edited your original post. The point being that whoever wrote that book clearly seemed to be writing based on faulty second hand information, and worse, was positing an ad hominem argument about a perfectly legal past time of a specific sector of the Streatham population. The quote I posted above details the problems in their argument quite clearly.
The bulk of my previous post was a rebuttal of that - khat isn't illegal, and, IMO shouldn't be. So to list the active ingredients and what they supposedly do is like complaining there are people smoking cigarettes on the street - so what.
As per the issue of noise and broken sleep; this is an issue I can sympathise with. However, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't recall you having raised this at a Safer Neighbourhoods Panel meeting where the appropriate officials can take this as an action and get back to you with what can be done about it.
If it's happening before 11PM then there is less scope for action than afterwards but, depending on the detail of your experience, there may be things the team and the council can do.
Come to the next meeting and raise it as an issue and you may be able to see a council official immediately afterwards to discuss it.
you know I shouldn't have
you know I shouldn't have posted the link, I'm not always the most reasonable person when I'm tired and pissed off....
I would be happy to attend the meetings only I have a job which sometimes involves travel and am not always free when the meetings are being held
Also if I attend the meeting I do not wish any comeback on me..if there are persons involved there they then know what I look like.
When you start messing with peoples hang outs and trading ground it can turn out quite messy.
I would rather the community safety officers patrolled the area in the evenings and move the groups along or possibly some CCTV would be advantageous to catch the illegal trade from car boots which has been attracting crowds and there has been a large group of boys lately riding up and down the street on one of their motor bikes without a helmet.
I now have the number for lambeth anti-social behaviour and will report my concerns as they happen.
Enough is enough!
Many of us feel that don't want to see investors and business people driven out of Streatham because of a few anti-social selfish people whoever they are.
The future of Streatham and the quality of life here is dependant upon the area offering the people here jobs and investors a reason to come and improve the facilities and high road. This kind of ASB is hardly a welcome to them is it?
Furthermore Khat may be legal, as is alcohol, but it doesn't mean it isn't very bad for your health and actually its use is medically linked to mental illness.
If khat is causing/leading to ASB it needs to be tackled in the same way as drunken ASB before we are living in a complete pit.
It really is time to deal with this nonsense. I hate walking around in this part of town even in the middle of the day as it is really intimidating, so how are other potential customers and investors going to feel.
Time to get tough please!
Get on the band wagon!
Khat is neither religious or medicinal so what is the problem with banning it. The rest of Europe and the US have and it's about time we followed suit.
The door on the left underneath the Nura cafe sign on Gleneagle where there is money changing hands for this drug every day. It is a crime to trade Khat so why are the police in fear of being racist. In my view if a crime is being committed one size fits all!
How can we concentrate on immigration if we allow acts that cause separation and hate between communities
Why? What would be the point?
Khat has about half the physiological effect of ecstasy or normal cannabis (not skunk) on the body and about 1/3rd the effect of tobacco. It has less than half the addictive properties of all of these except tobacco (which is around 4 times as addictive) so really, on the drug spectrum, it rates up there with coffee and alcohol without the widespread social effects alcohol does.
So what's the point? Why ban yet another thing that human beings have been using without substantial problems for millenia (but mainly in the Middle East)? It doesn't cause the social problems in Streatham but itseems like it's being seized upon as a way to hit back at them.
So maybe it will be banned. Now how effective would that be - perhaps no one's noticed the violence and expansion of criminality when we banned cannabis and ecstasy not that long ago, and the rise of the narco-states and internationally violent mafias that control the incredibly popular and profitable cocaine trade? Banning them hasn't even begun to put a dent into their use but it's put huge amounts into drug gangs pockets and guns on our streets. Nice. Remember what happens to those who don't learn from history? But, hey - your bandwagon....
The point would be!
Because we have enough layabouts and unemployed without having something else on the market to assist this at least if it is illegal there will be less people getting involved and harder to get it into the country.
You mentioned in the minutes of meeting that it would cause more problems.
What problems do you envision because as long as the anti-social behavior and disruption continues I'm sure most would agree that it is the only way forward. To get a more rounded view what positives do you see in keeping this legal.
You clearly don't live in an area where this is rife. This is not a personal thing to get back at people. The Knat house on Streatham High Road/Gleneagle road brings nothing but mistery to the residents, I can't leave my car outside as someone will sit on it, being woken up at 1-2 in the morning with people so intoxicated, I am in fear of coming home late at weekends. There is a complete lack of respect for the residents and their possesions!
What will it take to get this banned, someone being killed or shall we stop it before this happens....prevention is better than cure!
This country needs restoration and some sort of hope for achievement not downgraded by lazy habits.
Nice thought but it won't work
"Because we have enough layabouts and unemployed without having something else on the market to assist this at least if it is illegal there will be less people getting involved and harder to get it into the country."
Hmmm, yeah, that will really work. Cocaine use has doubled since 1999* so prohibition is clearly really effective.
"You clearly don't live in an area where this is rife"
Actually I do. And some of us have been working on stopping the ASB in the dip (which is the problem, not the khat) for over three years now. On our own time as volunteers, as well. But banning khat is not a way to do it anymore than banning alcohol will get rid of the homeless, unemployed Polish blokes St Leonards churchyard or banning ciggies will get rid of ASBO yobs on the estates.
* http://www.economist.com/world/britain/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14057252 (second paragraph)
You still haven't
I agree with Pringles, it certainly doesn't help the anti-social behaviour.
Lee you didn't answer the question of what positives you see of keeping it legal?
Because the police don't have the resources is not good enough....Cocaine has doubled because there is not strict enough measures in place and they need harder sentences to make people think twice, this softly softly approach is not working.
Lets get back to the main point, the anti-social behaviour.
I was delighted when I picked up a copy of the Lambeth Lite to see that there has been a dispersal zone introduced in Herne Hill.
Section 30 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act 2003 provides police with a power to establish and enforce dispersal zones, where there are reasonable grounds to believe there is persistent anti-social behaviour. Authorisation may not be given without the consent of the local authority.
Dispersal Zones are not curfews or blanket bans. They do not prevent anyone from entering the designated area, but they address anti-social behaviour through curtailing two or more persons present in that area for up to 24 hours.
I think this is something that could work in the dip and would be happy to see this introduced as I am sure would the residents and local businesses that this affects. We should not feel intimidated on our own front doors and feel driven out of our homes.
Are there any plans to put this in place, will it be discussed at the next meeting?
I'm Interested
This dispersal zone, how do we go about it. I would be very interested to see this happen.
The local cafe's and restaurants can also play their part. I was in contact recently with the environmental health officer. He explained he has visited previously and informed - 'given a warning' to the local cafe's/restaurants that it is their responsibility to ensure that their customers leave their premises quietly otherwise 'action can be take against them which includes a £20000 fine and closure if it continues'
What are the licensing hours for these places, I'm sure being open until 11pm is not in their terms of business.
Premises Application
Pringles - FYI
The premises application for 20 Gleneage Road P135-145
The licencing hours are on P144 point 2 between the hours of 0700-2300
All applications and licences can be obtained from the lambeth council rearding licencing hours, noise pollition etc
prohibition is clearly really effective.
Are you suggesting cocaine be made legal?
These habits are not related to any single race. "Polish blokes" are only a fraction of the problem, there are many different races involved.....I frankly don't care which nationality they are, there is a standard in this country that is dropping at a great rate. There was a lot less of this when the laws and punishment were stricter!