Earlier this year a Telegraph investigation revealed how the legal high Khat was imported from Ethiopia and sold at shops or restaurants across Hillfields and Foleshill.
This week members of the city’s Somali community, which is plagued by the drug, gathered with experts and local health workers to stage a Khat Awareness Day. They warned the drug had become “the enemy within” and was tearing their communities apart.
More alarming still, they fear by ignoring the problem the government could make angry, isolated young men easy targets for extremists seeking to recruit the next generation of terrorists.
Coventry doctor Aiman Alzetani said: “How many youngsters who feel they are not supported by the community and are using khat could be hijacked by these extremists who tell them, ‘Westerners are not interested in you, why not join us?’”
Source: Coventry