The rapid rise of Morocco’s new legal cannabis industry can be attributed to two main drivers: the decision to build a 21st framework built around legacy farmers and landrace, and the ability to implement controversial decisions by royal decree.
King Mohammed VI will go down in history as the leader who reinvigorated a centuries-old tradition of cannabis trade within a 21st century framework. Although Morocco has its critics who point to the tight control by the monarchy of the industry and the continued criminalization of consumers, the King has set Morocco on a road to legalization and opened up old cannabis trade routes between Africa and Europe.
King Mohammed VI has also challenged Islamic orthodoxy in partially legalizing cannabis with an ambitious programme in 2021. Law 13-21 put in process the legalization of medical and industrial cannabis in a controlled process that started with pardoning farmers convicted of cannabis offences, issuing licenses to legacy growers, creating co-ops to manage compliance and putting the famed Bedayi landrace centre stage.
In doing so, he was tackling an issue that has challenged Morocco’s rulers since it was introduced by Muslim conquerors in the 10th centuries.
In a paper Navigating Cannabis Regulation in Morocco: Historical Context, Socio-Economic Impact, and Policy Gaps, published in the Journal of Illicit Economies and Development published in August 2025, the authors, Khalid Tinasti, Kenza Afsahi, Khalid Mouna, identify the problem areas in Morocco’s reform programme.
They argue that Morocco needs to develop a more integrated cannabis framework that takes consumers into account. They acknowledge the situation King Mohammed VI finds himself in, having to manage a challenge that has faced his predecessors down the passage of time: how to manage the tension between economic liberalization in the cannabis sector, religious orthodoxy, and the restrictive, conservative elements of the law that limit access to cannabis for non-medical use
Their paper providers a succinct insight into Morocco’s long history of dealing with cannabis, and an excerpt of their work is reproduced below.
Ancient Tradition Undergoing a Profound Shift
In Morocco, the 2021 legalization of medical and industrial cannabis represents a significant policy shift in a long history of cannabis cultivation, prohibition, and partial legitimization.
The law, however, fails to address cannabis consumers, focusing instead on socio-economic benefits for producers and industrial actors. This omission is particularly striking given the longstanding cultural, medicinal, and social role of cannabis in Moroccan society.
The emergence of kif (cannabis in Morocco), widely used in the 16th and 17th centuries during the Saadian era, left the Sultans embarrassed between prohibition and legal monopoly.
The spread of kif among all social strata sparked debate among the ulemas (scholars of Islamic law), between those who saw no harm in the use of tobacco and kif and those who perceived it as a moral danger.
Under pressure from the ulemas who wanted to prohibit the monopoly on tobacco and kif, Sultan Hassan I (1873–1894) sent a letter to the ulemas of Fez to solicit their opinion on the use and trade of drowsy and spoiled herbs (tobacco and kif).
He also asked for their opinion on the monopoly of these two products by the makhzen (sultan’s administration). The Sultan’s letter suggests that Hassan I did not want a ban but rather an invitation to legitimize and find a religious solution to create a kif monopoly. By the end of the 19th century, cannabis trade had become profitable in Moroccan international trade.
Around the same period, 90% of pharmaceutical cannabis used in France came from Morocco’s Rif region.
The Sultan’s letter emphasized the moral and economic consequences of potentially liberalizing kif to benefit Europeans. The ulemas, viewing kif as a continuous source of societal immorality, ultimately decided to permit a makhzen monopoly due to its financial benefits, provided it was banned for the public and gradually phased out to prevent citizen revolt.
During this era, Jewish and Greek merchants were legal traffickers specializing in exporting kif to neighboring countries. These traders possessed significant capital, allowing them to purchase ships to transport large kif shipments. Import and export activities were conducted through various Moroccan ports, particularly Agadir.
In this context of trade freedom, in 1910, just before the start of the Protectorate, the French administration established a monopoly on kif tobacco, through the ‘Société internationale de Régie co-intéressée des tabacs et du kif au Maroc’ for 40 years, with an option for the Moroccan government to buy it back after 20 years.
This development led to the creation of a cultivation zone under the French protectorate, around 1926, where kif was authorized on the outskirts of Ouezzane. However, cannabis cultivated in the mountainous regions of the Rif, located in the Spanish colonized areas, remained beyond the control of the Régie.
When Paul Bowles first arrived in Tangier in the 1930s, ‘kif was still freely sold in tobacco shops. It was a government monopoly. Since kif was a very volatile product, Moroccans preferred to prepare it themselves, as it had to be smoked as quickly as possible’.
At this time, there were two products: an official less consumed manufactured product and a highly demanded smuggled product. France, bound by the pre-UN international conventions it had signed, continued to profit from the kif market but gradually limited production areas until cannabis was banned just before Morocco’s independence.
These laws were extended post-independence, prohibiting its cultivation, commercialization, and consumption nationwide. Cannabis, once legal, tolerated, and legitimized with therapeutic, social, and religious virtues, became an illegal and illegitimate product. Most health professionals still view it solely through the lens of pathology, focusing on addiction and other related psychotic disorders.
Fast-forward to 2021, a landmark year in Morocco’s history with cannabis. The legal landscape of cannabis in Morocco is now experiencing a significant transformation with the passing of Law 13–21, which legalizes cannabis for medical and industrial purposes.
This marks a profound shift from the nation’s long history of criminalizing cannabis and reflects a willingness to reconsider the plant’s role within society. However, this new law, while progressive in some aspects, is not without its limitations. As demonstrated by historical context, where cannabis was once legalized, monopolized, and later banned, the 2021 reform could be considered a hybrid approach—both conservative in its restrictions and liberal in its attempts to develop the cannabis industry.
While the law primarily targets the socio-economic needs of small farmers and the growth of the cannabis industry, it overlooks the role of local consumers and patients who were, at times, the very drivers of this plant’s cultivation.
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