Morocco’s King Mohammed VI on Monday evening granted clemency to 4,831 people imprisoned, prosecuted or wanted for growing and distributing cannabis, the vast majority of whom are farmers from the Rif region in the north of the country. The clemency comes as part of the national holiday of the Revolution of the King and the People, which is celebrating its 71st edition this year and is usually accompanied by royal pardons. The decision was long-awaited after the Moroccan parliament passed a law in 2021 allowing the cultivation of cannabis for therapeutic and industrial purposes. Recreational use remains prohibited.
Of those pardoned, 548 were in prison, while another 137 had been convicted but were free, according to the official Moroccan news agency MAP. The rest had been prosecuted for an activity that was illegal at the time the investigation was opened, but that was no longer so. Although there had been speculation on social media in the days leading up to the incident that some political prisoners might also benefit from the royal pardon, this was not the case.
There was a lot of anticipation about the possible release of 81-year-old Spanish-born dissident Mohamed Ziane, a former human rights minister who had become very critical of the regime in recent years and who has been serving two prison sentences, of three and six years. At the end of July, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of his accession to the throne, the Alawite monarch granted a pardon to three well-known journalists who had been behind bars for several years: Omar Radi, Suleiman Raisuni and Taufiq Buachrin. In addition to Ziane, there are a dozen activists who are prisoners of conscience, who are the subject of an international campaign to demand their release following their arrest in connection with the Rif uprising, which took place between 2016 and 2017.
By legalising cannabis in 2021, the Moroccan parliament has sought to calm the tensions in the northern Rif region, which has been marginalised by Rabat in its investments for decades and is one of the main hotbeds of opposition to the regime. The new legislation does not allow the cultivation of the psychotropic plant throughout the country, but only in the three northern provinces that are part of the Rif, Al Hoceima, Chefchaouen and Taounat. The region has a long tradition of cannabis production, and a study by the NGO Global Initiative estimates that between 96,000 and 140,000 families live directly or indirectly from its sale, most of them small farmers. In 2016, the then president of the region, Ilyas al Omari, said that 80% of the region’s income was related to cannabis.
Growth of the legal circuit
Another reason for the legal change is Morocco’s desire to become the world’s leading producer of cannabis in the legal circuit, a sector that is experiencing substantial growth, due to its medicinal value, as well as for other industrial uses, such as the production of cosmetics. In 2020, the United Nations removed the substance from its list of the most dangerous drugs, and a growing number of countries, including Germany and Canada, have even decriminalised its recreational use. This situation has facilitated the business volume around cannabis to already exceed 60 billion euros, almost double that of 2020.
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This reality explains the substantial increase in the granting of activity licenses by ANRAC, the National Agency for the Regulation of Activities Related to Cannabis. While last year it granted 430 licenses to farmers for the cultivation of the plant, so far this year the figure has already risen to 2,837. If marketing permits are added, the total for 2024 rises to 3,029. Morocco has been considered for years the second largest producer of cannabis in the world, only behind Afghanistan.
According to the Global Initiative study, before legalisation, day labourers in the sector received a daily wage of between 10 and 13 euros, and small farmers kept only 4% of the total value of marijuana sales on the market. The researchers expect this latter figure to rise to 12% after legalisation, but there is still no reliable data on this.
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