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 veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 6,105
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 Across state lines, khat penalties are starkly different [MN]
#7235806 - 07/29/07 07:23 AM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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Across state lines, khat penalties are starkly different
July 28, 2007 - startribune.com
Punishments for possession vary on state and federal levels, a fact that landed two men bound for Minnesota in prison.
Driving back to Minneapolis last year, Hussein Mohamed and Maxamed Abshar were pulled over on the Ohio Turnpike, where state troopers found 170 pounds of a leafy substance hidden in their van.
The men were carrying khat, a plant that contains a chemical considered an illegal drug chewed by some East Africans. But in Minnesota courts, as in most federal courts, the men would likely have received probation for possession of the plants, their attorney said.
Instead, the men were sentenced earlier this year to 11 years behind bars, the longest prison term ever for khat possession, said their attorney Sidney Moore, of Atlanta, who has represented khat defendants in 26 states for the past 10 years.
The case, now being appealed, has highlighted the starkly different penalties that different states hand down for khat, which arrived with the wave of immigrants from Somalia and other East African countries.
"It's an extreme example of a hodgepodge of penalties that occur for drug offenses within states and across states," said Tom Johnson, executive director of the Council on Crime and Justice, a nonprofit research and advocacy group in Minneapolis. "You go from a drug that some people wonder if it should be legal -- to one requiring a 10-year sentence. It's generally crazy -- but this is an extreme."
Maj. John Born, a spokesman for the Ohio State Highway Patrol, thinks his state's approach in the case was justified. "If you've got 170 pounds of something illegal, you know you're doing something wrong," he said.
Both Mohamed and Abshar had lived in the United States since the late 1990s, said their relative, Iman Karshe. Abshar worked at a coffee shop and computer store at the Carmel Mall in Minneapolis and did technical support for a local company, she said. Mohamed worked in home health care.
"Everybody is talking about this case," said Abdulla Mohamed, Hussein Mohamed's brother. "When I tell them about the sentence, they say, 'Ten years? What happened? Why?' "
Early one morning in March, Mohamed and Abshar were driving their Dodge van from New York to Minnesota, along the Ohio Turnpike. They were stopped by the state highway patrol because they were following another vehicle too closely. The troopers found bundles of khat stuffed into two duffle bags and two suitcases, apparently being transported from New York to Minnesota.
In Ohio, the criminal penalties for khat are the same as for drugs such as cocaine, said Moore. That's because when the khat plant is fresh, it contains cathinone, a stimulant listed as a Schedule I controlled substance in the United States, along with heroin and LSD. Possession is a felony.
However, the cathinone breaks down after 48 to 72 hours, leaving behind a milder stimulant, cathine. Possession of that is a misdemeanor. So the drug has to be tested -- and fast.
It doesn't matter if every khat plant contained the more potent drug, or just one leaf, said Born, the Ohio highway patrol spokesman. It's still considered a Schedule I drug.
"We've tested the drug and found both substances in the same batch," said Born, who doesn't think the law is unreasonable.
However, in federal courts around the country, people convicted of possessing or selling khat usually get probation, unless it's thousands of pounds of the drug, said Moore. "I even had a 3,000-pound case in the District of Columbia, where they were given 12 months probation on a first-offender basis."
One hundred pounds of khat is treated as the equivalent of one pound of marijuana in the federal system, said Kent Bailey, special agent in charge of the Minnesota office of the Drug Enforcement Administration. And it takes 1,000 kilos of marijuana to get a 10-year prison sentence.
Bailey thinks that's too lenient.
"They're treating khat the plant less severe than marijuana," he said. "Yet the same active ingredients in khat can have similar mind-altering effects."
In Minnesota, it doesn't matter if a person is caught with seven pounds of khat or 70 tons of khat, the criminal penalties are the same, said Assistant Hennepin County Attorney Jane Ranum, who oversees the drug enforcement unit.
"Our sales laws don't distinguish between amounts [of drug found]," she said.
Someone convicted of selling khat would get 18 months in prison, a sentence usually stayed while the person is placed on probation, said Ranum. Even if the person had previous criminal convictions, he would be unlikely to serve any jail time, she said.
The Hennepin County Attorney's office prosecuted 35 khat cases since 2005, Ranum said. She doesn't recall anyone with 170 pounds of the drug, however. Nor did Minneapolis Assistant Police Chief Sharon Lubinski, who recalls the biggest arrests for 20 to 50 pounds.
Karshe said when his family in Minnesota heard about the arrests, they assumed the men would be treated the same as in Minnesota. When they found out the men would be serving a decade in prison, people organized a fundraiser to help Mohamed's wife and four children, who live in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis.
Abshar, she said, was in the process of bringing his two children to the United States.
As the case is being appealed in Ohio, local Somalis have concluded one thing about the men's plight. Karshe said. "They were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
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 wowitch17
dont murder me
Registered: 01/10/06
Posts: 1,833
Loc: Austin area, Texas
Last seen: 2 days, 17 hours
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Re: Across state lines, khat penalties are starkly different [MN] [Re: veggie]
#7235933 - 07/29/07 09:22 AM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
"If you've got 170 pounds of something illegal, you know you're doing something wrong," he said.
lotta stupid cops...All this khat buisness reminds me of when marijuana was illegalized because of the threat of crazy negros and lazy mexicans. Only now its strange East Africans. I mean come on this shit cant be any worse than cigarretes and alcohol.
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get big mario style
notapillow said: in space nebulas of pure n2o exist
they are pink
Edited by wowitch17 (07/29/07 09:25 AM)
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Noviseer
Percussion isFree
Registered: 03/18/03
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Re: Across state lines, khat penalties are starkly different [MN] [Re: veggie]
#7236599 - 07/29/07 02:11 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
veggie said:
Bailey thinks that's too lenient.
"They're treating khat the plant less severe than marijuana," he said. "Yet the same active ingredients in khat can have similar mind-altering effects."
how many tons of mind altering Camellia Sinensis (tea) leaves does starbucks slang every day? Or the stronger cousin, Coffea Arabica. If those plants are legal and khat isn't, then the criteria obviously isn't "mind-altering effects."
Cops are such morons. They ruin people's lives without rhyme, reason, or logic. They behave like dogs, mindlessly loyal and capable of senseless brutality without question. Leave us alone pigs!
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namaste said:
no flamz in da ODD, if you got nothing to contribute then keep yo lips zipped
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 justin_thyme
tool
Registered: 02/28/07
Posts: 1,023
Loc: OUt partying you
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Re: Across state lines, khat penalties are starkly different [MN] [Re: Noviseer]
#7237122 - 07/29/07 05:37 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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khat is much stronger than coffee dude 
not that i think it should be illegal.
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Fuck it all with no regrets
I hit the lights on these dark sets
I need a voice to let myself
To let myself go free
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Noviseer
Percussion isFree
Registered: 03/18/03
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Re: Across state lines, khat penalties are starkly different [MN] [Re: justin_thyme]
#7237251 - 07/29/07 06:15 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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Quote:
justin_thyme said:
khat is much stronger than coffee dude
not that i think it should be illegal.
Yea i know, my point is that not all plants with "Mind-altering effects" are illegal, nor should they be. But in the quote, the cop is justifying the prohibition by saying that khat has mind altering effects. its just a dumb reason for something to be illegal.
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namaste said:
no flamz in da ODD, if you got nothing to contribute then keep yo lips zipped
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justin_thyme
tool
Registered: 02/28/07
Posts: 1,023
Loc: OUt partying you
Last seen: 39 seconds
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Re: Across state lines, khat penalties are starkly different [MN] [Re: Noviseer]
#7237284 - 07/29/07 06:21 PM (1 year, 2 months ago) |
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oh gotcha. you're right about that.
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Fuck it all with no regrets
I hit the lights on these dark sets
I need a voice to let myself
To let myself go free
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