Will Morocco finally legalize medical cannabis?

We reported last week, Morocco, Europe's leading producer of cannabis, presented on Thursday a bill of law to legalize medical cannabis. Although the project is supported by the government, which seems determined to make progress on this century-old issue, nothing has been definitively decided yet.

Morocco's plan to legalize medical cannabis

The bill, which is strictly limited to medical and industrial uses, provides for the creation of a regulatory agency for cannabis-related activities, the Agence nationale de réglementation des activités relatives au chanvre indien, which will be headquartered in Rabat and may be set up in any Moroccan region or province as required.

This institution will deploy the Moroccan government's strategy in terms of cannabis cultivation, processing, marketing, export or import for medical, pharmaceutical or industrial purposes. It will be solely responsible for issuing or withdrawing authorizations to cultivate the plant, and will be able to carry out inspection missions and even take sanctions against those who violate future legislation.

The bill would also legalize the therapeutic use of cannabis, limiting production to volumes «necessary for medical, pharmaceutical and industrial purposes» and to specific regions. Licensed cannabis growers would also be required to join agricultural cooperatives and sell their production exclusively to authorized companies.

The applicant must also own a plot of land, or be authorized (by the owner) to cultivate cannabis resin. For import and export authorizations, the applicant must have a secure, supervised storage facility, while the authorization system also includes the establishment and operation of cannabis nurseries, as well as the export and import of cannabis seeds and plants.

In addition, the Agency will be the sole point of contact for international organizations.

Feedback

The issue is not new, but the speed with which the Moroccan government announced its intention to legalize it took everyone by surprise. Kenza Afsahi, a lecturer in sociology at Bordeaux University and researcher at the Centre Emile Durkheim, welcomed the news.

«In Morocco, we have a major issue with illegal cannabis production, in the Rif, where hundreds of thousands of farmers, at the very beginning of the chain, are not reaping sufficient economic and social benefits. Prohibition over the last few decades has caused a great deal of damage, keeping them marginalized, precarious and in a widespread climate of fear of prosecution. It has also stigmatized Morocco, which has come under a great deal of international pressure, particularly from Europe, to reduce the area under cannabis cultivation, even though the French and Spanish Protectorates played a role in the development of this crop.»

The legalization project will have an economic vocation, but above all a social one, in particular to help out historic growers who have an environment and climate conducive to cannabis cultivation, and ancestral knowledge, but work for the black market.

«Farmers are suffering from the degradation of their environment, accentuated by the multiplication of introduced hybrid varieties and new cultivation techniques that are ill-adapted or poorly assimilated,» explains Kenza Afsahi.

«These have increased the pressure on land already weakened by the intensification of cultivation and the exploitation of labor, including that of women who are heavily involved in cultivation even though they don't derive any direct income from it. These varieties, which are more profitable in the short term, require more maintenance, more water, more fertilizer, etc. They have also generated a new market for the plant. They have also generated a new market for seeds, which were previously free. What's more, the political and economic context has changed: Moroccan hashish is facing competition from Europe as a result of increased domestic cultivation, changing consumer preferences in favor of weed, the emergence of new legal markets...».»

Farmers, for their part, are still skeptical and regret that there was no consultation, according to several accounts gathered by H24Info, a Moroccan media outlet.

«Will we be trained and supported? Will the agency have a monopoly, and what guarantee do we have that it won't be privatized in the future?, asks says Hassan, who fears that «the real beneficiaries will be those who are best prepared».

Khalid Mouna, anthropologist, researcher and author of the reference work «Le bled du kif: économie et pouvoir chez les Ketama du Rif», explains that «these fears are legitimate». «Some players won't be happy about it, because according to some comments I've already received from growers, legalization will plunge them into bureaucratic and state-run logics, present in all sectors of activity and which they don't necessarily master», asserts the researcher.

Next steps

Before going any further, the text should be completed and approved at the next Council of Ministers meeting on March 4. Among the outstanding points, the provinces concerned by the legal production of medical cannabis are not yet listed.

The procedures for granting cultivation authorizations and the formalities for supplying seeds and seedlings approved by the national agency will also have to be decided. In addition, the specifications to be met for production will have to be determined, as will the legal THC threshold, should it be limited.