Meru Senator to table bill seeking to declassify Miraa as narcotic drug
The Senate deputy speaker Kathuri Murungi, who is also Meru county Senator, is set to table amendments bill seeking to remove Miraa from classification of narcotic drug.
In latest report by the Nacada on the upscaling the fight against alcohol and drug abuse in Kenya, miraa was rated number three. The report left many famers with a big shock as some of them only depend on it for survival.
Leaders disputed the reports from the NACADA and asked the chairman and the CEO to tell the president why they are hurting the miraa crop. He said from next week he will present the bill where he said he will make sure the bill fails since the Kenya Kwanza Senators and MPs are the majority in both houses.
They urged president Ruto to intervene on the matter to save the crop of Meru people who gave him more than 400,000 votes in the last election. “When the president and his deputy came to Meru, I saw them chewing miraa, is NACADA bigger than our president?”, Senator Kathuri asked.
He urged the NACADA chair and the CEO to visit Meru because they say miraa prevents people not to give birth, saying Meru is one of the counties with the highest population in Kenya.
Kathuri said they have touched a live wire and vowed to mobilise more than 5,000 miraa famers from Meru to the offices of NACADA to see the chairman and the CEO and present their complaints. His sentiments were seconded by Buuri Constituency Mp Hon Mugambi Rindikiri who said he will stand with Miraa farmers to make sure they got a way for their green gold.
They were speaking in Maua town yesterday during the launch of the county splitting campaign and oversight role where they were accompanied by several MCAs and other leaders.
The Senate deputy speaker Kathuri Murungi, who is also Meru county Senator, is set to table amendments bill seeking to remove Miraa from classification of narcotic drug.
The Senator wants law categorising Miraa as a harmful drug be ammended.
Several leaders from the region have backed the move claiming the classification is hurting sales especially in international market.
“When the president and his deputy came to Meru, I saw them chewing miraa, is NACADA bigger than our president?”, Senator Kathuri said.
In March this year, Miraa farmers in Meru demanded the repeal of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (Control) Act of 1994 which classifies Cathine and Cathinone, the two main substances found in miraa, as harmful and qualifying to be in the category of drugs.
Led by the chairperson of the Kenya Miraa Farmers and Traders Association (Kemifata) Moses Lichoro, the farmers said there is a huge market in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Djibouti, but both governments are awaiting Kenya to pronounce itself on whether or not khat is a drug.
In 2013, the then chairperson of the National Authority for Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (NACADA) John Mututho urged the National Assembly to amend the law that classifies miraa as a drug.
Mututho argues that the amount of Cathine and Cathinone in miraa and their effects are too low to warrant the crop to be considered a drug. He also claims that research has shown that miraa is not as dangerous as some people want it to look.
In recent years, the group has laid blame on the law for the import ban imposed by the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
The farmers asked President William Ruto to set aside funds to support miraa farmers, and to support the digging of boreholes to support the farming of the crop.
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