Abukar Awale, 41, a community engagement officer at Copland School, is juggling his working life with a dedicated crusade to ban Khat, a plant grown and consumed in parts of north east Africa and the Middle East.
It appears his efforts are making waves as the government has confirmed it is embarking on a full review of the legal high.
Khat, pronounced 'cat', is imported into the UK in huge quantities and is a legal substance, despite containing cathine and cathinone - which is also found in the now illegal party drug meow moew.
Khat, which sells at around £4 for a bundle, is chewed and produces feelings of euphoria, increased energy and enhanced self esteem. Mental health professionals have said that withdrawal from Khat can lead to feelings of depression. It has also been linked to unemployment in users.
Mr Awale, a father of five who now lives in Westminster, was a former Khat addict. He says that the plant "destroyed" his life, and when he stopped taking the drug he had to rebuild everything from scratch. He believes there is a "serious problem" with the drug in Wembley, particularly for the Somali community, and says it is making the integration of Somali people difficult.
Mr Awale has been busy lobbying politicians to get the drug classified in the UK in line with some European countries. He claims to have gathered more than 70,000 signatures for a petition, which he will soon be delivering to the Government.
Mr Awale said his battle with Khat began when he moved to the country in 1997. He said: "I was struggling to settle in here, and it was getting me down. I was applying for asylum with the Home Office and it took six years for that to be sorted out, I could not work, it was very hard.
"I ended up going to this pub, which has a lot of Somali customers, and that was where it all started. I lost my confidence, my self esteem, I became paranoid. It all reached a head in 2004, and that was when I stopped. I haven't had it since and I wouldn't touch it again. I despise it."
After he gave up, Mr Awale went on training courses to prepare him for the world of work, before starting the career he loves.
"It was extremely hard to come off it, I had the shakes, I wouldn't have got through it without my wife."
He has been working on his 'Stop Khat Coming to the UK' campaign, for the past few years, meeting with the likes of the former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.
He will shortly present his petition in the hope that he can push the Government to act quickly.
A spokesman for the Home Office said: “The Home Secretary wrote to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to set out the Government's priorities for inclusion in the Advisory Council's work programme in 2011/12.
“These priorities include the need for a review of the available evidence relating to the harms of khat and for the ACMD to provide advice in relation to its control under Misuse of Drugs legislation.
“We will consider the ACMD's advice carefully along with all other relevant factors relating to public health and protection."
Source: www.harrowobserver.co.uk
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