Morocco Cracks Down on Water-Intensive Cannabis Strains Amid Drought Concerns

In total, 236,412 wells have been built in 66 localities across Morocco and are used in the cultivation of new cannabis varieties: "Khardala", whose seeds are imported from Latin America, "Mexicana" and "Pakistana", in reference to the names of the importing countries, as well as "Critical" from the Netherlands. These foreign varieties consume five times more water than the cultivation of traditional hashish. These new variants represent not only major health risks, but they also constitute an ecological danger for the groundwater, the resources of which they quickly deplete.

The inability of the water police and its limited means to face the power of the hashish lobby has led Nizar Baraka, Minister of Equipment and Water, to ask for help from his colleague, the Minister of the Interior, Abdelouafi Laftit. The latter immediately proceeded to the immediate closure of the wells used for the irrigation of these cannabis plantations in the northern region of Morocco and other illegal irrigation sources.