Historical letters from British colonial officials have surfaced, offering a revealing glimpse into the alarm caused by widespread miraa (also known as khat) consumption in Northern Kenya during the 1930s and 1940s. The correspondence, penned by senior health and administrative officers, paints a bleak picture of the drug’s perceived impact on health, productivity, and social order in the region.
In a letter dated May 12, 1939, Malcolm Clark, from the Native Civil Hospital in Wajir, described the effects of kat use as mentally and physically debilitating. “People under the influence of kat live in a ‘dream world’ and lose all sense of reality,” he wrote. While not typically violent, Clark claimed users eventually became “listless, lazy, ‘good-for-nothing’” individuals lacking energy, ambition, and even sexual desire.
He further remarked that in neighbouring Somaliland, where the problem was more severe, domestic servants found chewing khat were routinely dismissed because of the drug’s adverse impact on their work performance.
Seven years later, on September 19, 1946, the officer-in-charge of the Northern Frontier District (NFD) expressed similar despair in a letter to colonial superiors. He described the rapid rise in miraa sales and shared his experience showing the Chief Native Commissioner a group of Meru traders who had arrived to sell the plant, alongside a hospitalised man suffering from extreme emaciation due to prolonged chewing.
“It seems to be rather a waste of time and effort providing medical services for the betterment of the health of the local people while we allow them to destroy their physical and mental health with miraa,” the officer wrote, calling the drug “filthy.”
These concerns prompted British administrators to introduce ordinances in the 1940s and 1950s aimed at curbing the sale and consumption of miraa in the NFD. However, the regulations proved ineffective. According to later accounts, smuggling routes quickly emerged, rendering the ban unenforceable. In a telling anecdote, miraa was reportedly trafficked as far as Marsabit by the district commissioner’s own driver.
The historical letters not only highlight the colonial administration’s struggles to regulate local drug use but also mirror ongoing debates around the social and health impacts of miraa across the Horn of Africa.
