Innocent BenjaminMorocco, the world’s largest producer of hashish, is preparing to legalize the therapeutic use of cannabis, with a legal framework intended to allow the state to promote a lucrative crop currently in the cuffers of traffickers.
On Thursday, March 11, the government council adopted a bill on “legal uses of cannabis“ authorising the use of the plant for “medical, cosmetic and industrial” purposes. The bill, which is pending validation from Parliament, does not concern recreational cannabis, which is still prohibited.
The ultimate goal is to “convert illicit crops that destroy the environment into sustainable legal activities that generate value and jobs”, according to the bill.
“This is the end of a political taboo, the culmination of a dynamic launched ten years ago at the highest level of the State,” said Khalid Mouna, professor of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities Moulay Ismail, Mekne and Fellow Researcher at the Centre Jacques Berque-CNRS, Rabat, Morocco.
The North African country are ranked the world’s leading producer of cannabis resin (hashish) by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its 2020 report.
A Country Dedicated to Growing Cannabis
The official figures from a study unveiled this month in Rabat show that “55,000 hectares” were dedicated to the cultivation of cannabis in Morocco.
“In the opinion of the experts, the assets of the kingdom in this matter are at the very least undeniable: a favorable ecosystem, the proximity of the booming European market and an ancestral know-how of the farmers”, according to the Moroccan press agency, MAP.
Locations in Morocco, such as the Rif accommodate wide expanses of fields where the plant is being grown, albeit illegally. “On a practical level, it is not complicated, you just need to use suitable seeds and plant them in the next season” if the law is passed on time, underlines the botanist Ismaïl Azza.
The bill provides for the creation of a “regulatory agency” responsible for “developing an agricultural and industrial circuit” and controlling the entire “production chain“, from the import of seeds to marketing within “regulatory perimeters.
The region of “Ketama, which has always made the reputation of ‘the Moroccan’, as cannabis resin is nicknamed abroad, should necessarily be included in the list of authorized areas,” advised the semi-official 360 site.
Europe, a “target market” for Rabat
Morocco is counting on the “sustained development” of the world medical cannabis market, with projection of an average annual growth of around 60% in Europe, which represents its “target market“, according to a statement from the Ministry of the Interior. Experts estimate the legal cannabis market in Europe to be valued at $1 billion.
The work will be fast tracked, as “any delay in the implementation of the project could translate into risks of loss of economic opportunities to the benefit of competing countries”, warns the MAP.
The bill was presented “less than three months after the United Nation’s decision to remove cannabis from the list of the most dangerous drugs”, thus unlocking the therapeutic use of this psychoactive plant, underlines Khaled Mouna.
Legal crops “will improve the well-being” of the population of the Rif and will contribute to the economic development of this landlocked, poor and historically rebellious mountainous region, according to the MAP.
Traditionally cultivated for centuries, authorized under the French protectorate, banned in 1954 but tolerated since, cannabis supports between 80,000 and 120,000 Moroccan families, according to estimates.
The bill is however not unanimous within the Justice and Development party (PJD) which is the political party of the incumbent Prime Minister, Saadeddine Othmani.
Former leader of the PJD, Abdelilah Benkirane, announced the “freezing of his membership” to the party on its Facebook page, a few hours after the green light from the government council.
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James steller
