Morocco Considers Cannabis Legalization as Part of Regional Development Plan

This initiative is in line with the recommendations of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs, explains the newspaper Al Ahdath Al Maghribia, adding that the first round of work consists in taking into account the pockets of resistance to this project both inside and outside the kingdom. The Moroccan Network for the Defense of the Right to Health and Life urges the government and the Ministry of the Interior.

Then, several associative actors, researchers, members of civil society, signatories of a petition called "for a roadmap for the development of the cannabis cultivation regions" demand a development project that limits the cultivation of cannabis to the historical regions, while respecting their geographical, economic and human specificities, and which prohibits its extension to other areas. The actors operating there must be protected from large companies, they recommend.

The same associative actors also demand the unconditional release of all cannabis growers and the regularization of the land situation of the cannabis cultivation areas in the provinces of Hoceima and Chaouen, the redefinition of the boundaries of the forest areas, while allowing Moroccan cooperatives and companies access to the market to invest in hemp-based cosmetic industries and train human resources.