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Abstract
This article explores the concept of ‘quasilegality’ in relation to two of Africa’s drug crops: khat and cannabis. It argues that the concept is useful in understanding the two substances and their ambiguous relation to the statute books: khat being of varied and ever-changing legal status yet often treated with suspicion even where legal, while cannabis is illegal everywhere in Africa yet often seems de facto legal. The article argues that such quasilegality is socially significant and productive, raising the value of such crops for farmers and traders, but also allowing states to police or not police these substances as their interests and instincts dictate. It also argues that there is no clear link between the law on the statute book and the actual harm potential of these substances. Finally, it suggests that the concept has much wider use beyond these case studies of drugs in Africa in a world where global consensus on drug policy is cracking, and where many other objects of trade and activities find themselves in the blurred territory of the quasilegal.
Notes
1. UK Psychoactive Substances Act 2016.
2. Tsing, Friction.
3. See The Guardian, “Duterte Vows to Continue War on Drugs.”
4. Nadelmann, “Global Prohibition Regimes.”
5. Perez, “Fuzzy Law.”
6. Moore, “Law and Social Change.”
7. Gelsthorpe and Padfield, Exercising Discretion.
8. Ibid.
9. Okwumabua and Duryea, “Age of Onset.”
10. Cassanelli, “Qat,” 254.
11. Van Schendel and Abraham, Illicit Flows and Criminal Things.
12. Ibid. 17.
13. Ibid. 7.
14. Zaghloul et al., “Consequences of Khat Use,” 80.
15. Carrier, “The Need for Speed.”
16. Thomas and Williams, “Khat (Catha edulis).”
17. Graziani, Milella, and Nencini, “Khat Chewing from the Pharmacological Perspective,” 772–773.
18. Chapman, “Severe, Acute Liver Injury and Khat Leaves.”
19. Anderson and Carrier, Khat: Social Harms.
20. See Hansen, “The Ambiguity of Khat.”
21. Anderson and Carrier, Khat: Social Harms.
22. Hansen, Governing Khat.
23. Cassanelli, “Qat.”
24. Anderson and Carrier, “Khat in Colonial Kenya.”
25. Ibid., 250. Khat is also illegal in Tanzania and Eritrea, although the reasons for these bans are unresearched.
26. Anderson and Carrier, Khat: Social Harms, 21ff.
27. Anderson and Carrier, Khat: Social Harms, 22–23.
28. Klein, “Khat Ban in the UK,” 6–8.
29. Beckerleg, Ethnic Identity and Development.
30. Ibid., 169–171.
31. Carrier, “Khat and its Changing Politics.”
32. Mills, Cannabis Britannica.
33. See, for example, the 2007 special issue of The Lancet on cannabis and mental health: “Editorial: Rehashing the Evidence.”
34. Du Toit, “Dagga.”
35. Ibid., 84.
36. Fabian, Out of Our Minds.
37. Du Toit, “Dagga,” 96–97.
38. Klein, “Nigeria and the Drugs War,” 60.
39. UNODC, Cannabis in Africa, 15.
40. UNDCP, Drugs Nexus in Africa.
41. Leggett, Rainbow Vice, 37; Klantschnig, “Politics of Drug Control.”
42. Bernstein, “Ghana’s Drug Economy,” 18.
43. Savishinsky, “Baye Faal of Senegambia,” 212.
44. Lambo, “Medical and Social Problems.” Also see the work on cannabis by academics affiliated to Africa’s major drug policy pressure group CRISA and its African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies for diverse medical views on the substance.
45. Klantschnig, “Histories of Cannabis Use.”
46. Adelekan and Morakinyo, Rapid Assessment of the Treatment.
47. UNDCP, Drugs Nexus in Africa, 40.
48. Klantschnig, “Histories of Cannabis Use.”
49. Government of the Colony of Natal, Wragg Commission; Crampton, Dagga.
50. Laniel, “Cannabis in Lesotho”; Bloomer, “Using a Political Ecology Framework.”
51. Carrier and Klantschnig, “Illicit Livelihoods.”
52. Klantschnig, Crime, Drugs and the State.
53. Laudati, “Out of the Shadows.”
54. NDLEA, Annual Report 2008.
55. Carrier and Klantschnig, Africa and the War on Drugs, 106–129.
56. Ibid., chapter four.
57. NDLEA, Annual Report 2008.
58. Obot, “Assessing Nigeria’s Drug Control Policy.”
59. Cassanelli, “Qat,” 254.
60. Carrier and Klantschnig, Africa and the War on Drugs.
61. Carrier and Klantschnig, Africa and the War on Drugs, 117.
62. Carrier, “Miraa is cool.”
63. Polson, “Land and Law in Marijuana County.”
64. Ibid., 226.
65. Although as discussed above, khat’s path to illegality throughout the world was not a straightforward equation of harm generating law.
66. Ane-Loglo, Decriminalising Drug Use; Nairobi News, “Why this MP wants Bhang Legalised”.
67. See UNGASS website.
68. On the push for new policy in Latin America, see The Guardian, “Leaked Paper Reveals UN Split.”
69. For a critical report on UNGASS 2016, see International Drug Policy Consortium, UNGASS on the World Drug Problem.
70. Bewley-Taylor, International Drug Control.
71. The Guardian, “Durham Police Stop Targeting Pot Smokers.”
72. BBC News, “Bolivia's Morales Boosts Legal Coca.”
73. Carrier, “Strange Drug in a Strange Land.”
74. On cannabis and tourist revenue in Colorado, see Kang, O’Leary, and Miller, “From Forbidden Fruit.”
75. BBC News, “Afrique du Sud.”
76. Carrier and Klantschnig, “Illicit Livelihoods.”