Insomnia

...ba href=/insomnia/a/b and impotence.

"It's associated with laziness," said Omar Jamal, executive director of the St.

Paul-based Somali Justice Advocacy Center.

"People sit around for hours chewing." But Jamal worries that East African immigrants will be unfairly targeted as drug dealers for what's considered a common pastime in their home countries.

"This is a classic case of culture clash," said Jamal, who said Somalis have called him requesting legal help.

"We're getting calls from Moorhead.

We're getting calls from St.

Cloud.

We're getting calls from Rochester, from Waseca.

We're getting calls from very small towns we've never even heard of before." In late February, Moorhead police found a 22-pound shipment of khat that was going through an overnight delivery company.

Officers arrested two East African men, one from Minneapolis and the other from Fargo, N.D.

Because it's fairly new here, some officers don't recognize khat as a narcotic.

Moorhead narcotics Detective Brad Stuvland said he has known patrol officers who have thrown khat out, not realizing the small bundle of leaves and twigs, packaged in banana leaves to preserve moisture, warrants a charge of fifth-degree drug possession.

Because khat helps suppress appetite, some Twin Cities police have encountered it during Ramadan, the holy month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.

The month, which shifts with the lunar calendar, began last year in early October.

Officers usually expect khat use to wane after Ramadan, but that d...

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By Jeff Randall (Filed: 31/03/2006) Is it me, or are we becoming two nations, a society where what occurs in one half of the country bears no relation to events in the other?

I'm talking not about the divide identified by Disraeli - that between rich and poor.

Nor do I mean the gap between north and south, or even black and white.

No, the contrast to which I refer is starker than that.

It's the split between Negative Britain, in which we appear to be under relentless attack from an increasing list of death-in...