Ode to a leaf

Laikipia

According to an imminent Home Office decree, I am on drugs, I cultivate drugs and I intend to push drugs. I thought Blair’s government was moving to decriminalise narcotics such as marijuana. Instead it wants to burden the police and customs further by banning the vegetable stimulant Catha edulis. Otherwise known as miraa, qat, or khat, this plant is grown in the Horn of Africa and Yemen, and millions chew it. Countless thousands of perfectly respectable immigrants in Britain consume miraa daily.

I have always chewed the leaf. It’s my new little cash-crop project on our farm. The privet-like shrubs will grow into trees and they clearly thrive in our highland tropical conditions with plenty of sun and watering. I love my miraa plants. I often stroke them and talk to them, as would Prince Charles. I sit in my chair and gaze rapt at their emerald leaves and reddish branches.