UN Report: Morocco Tops Global Cannabis Production, Spain Key Transit Point

In a report published last month by UNODC, Morocco remains the world’s leading producer of cannabis with 47,500 hectares of cultivation of this substance in 2018, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

According to the same document, entitled "2020 World Drug Report", the majority of Moroccan-origin cannabis destined for Europe is first shipped to Spain, the main point of departure, before being delivered to other European countries.

For the UN agency, Morocco and other African countries have also become transit countries for cocaine destined for Europe in recent years. While Morocco is the supplier of cannabis to the European territory, West Africa, for example, is an important transit area for the cocaine traffic from South America to Europe.

This is evidenced by the significant seizures of cocaine in West Africa and Morocco, as well as in Africa as a whole, in recent years. In detail, cocaine seizures in Africa increased from 1.2 tons in 2015 to 3.3 tons in 2017 and 5.6 tons in 2018. Many seizures have also been made in Morocco.