BAB BERRED, Morocco (AP) — Since he started growing cannabis at age 14, Mohamed Makhlouf has lived in the shadows, losing sleep as he prepared for a knock on the door from authorities that could mean jail time or the confiscation of his entire crop.
But after decades of working in secret, Makhlouf has finally gained peace of mind as Morocco expands legal cultivation and works to integrate veteran growers like him into the formal economy.
On his farmland deep in the Rif Mountains, the stems of a government-approved strain of cannabis rise from the ground in dense clusters. He notices as the police pass by on a nearby road. But where the flavor of the crop once meant danger, today there is no cause for concern. They know he sells to a local co-op.
“Legalization is freedom,” Makhlouf said. “If you want your work to be clean, you work with companies and within the law.”
The story of Makhlouf, 70, reflects the experience of a small but growing number of farmers who started out on Morocco’s vast black market but now sell legally to cooperatives that produce medicinal and industrial cannabis.
A new market is beginning to sprout
Morocco is the largest producer of cannabis in the world and the best supplier of the resin used in the manufacture of hashish. For years, authorities have wavered between looking the other way and cracking down, even though the economy directly or indirectly supports hundreds of thousands of people in the Rif Mountains, according to United Nations reports and government data.
Abdelsalam Amraji, another cannabis farmer who has joined the legal industry, said the crop is crucial to keeping the community afloat.
“Local farmers tried growing wheat, walnuts, apples and other crops, but none yielded viable results,” he said.
The region is known as an epicenter of anti-government sentiment, and growers have lived with arrest warrants for years. They avoided towns and cities. Many have seen their fields burned in government campaigns targeting cultivation.
Although cannabis can fetch higher prices on the black market, the low risk is worth it, Amraji said.
“Making money in the illegal business brings fear and trouble,” he said. “When everything is legal, none of this happens.”
The market remains under strict regulation
The change began in 2021, when Morocco became the first major illegal producer of cannabis and the first Muslim-majority country to pass a law legalizing certain forms of cultivation.
Officials heralded the move as a way to lift small-scale farmers like Makhlouf and Amraji out of poverty and integrate cannabis-growing regions into the economy after decades of marginalization.
In 2024, King Mohammed VI pardoned more than 4,800 farmers serving prison terms to allow longtime growers to “integrate into the new strategy,” the Justice Ministry said at the time.
Since legalization was passed in 2022, Morocco has strictly regulated every stage of production and sale, from seeds and pesticides to farming and distribution licenses. Although some crops are licensed, officials have shown no sign of moving toward legalization or reforms aimed at recreational users.
“We have two contradictory missions that are really to allow the same project to succeed in the same environment,” said Mohammed El Guerrouj, director general of Morocco’s cannabis regulatory agency. “Our mission as police officers is to enforce the regulations. But our mission is also to support farmers and operators to succeed in their ventures.”
Licenses and cooperatives are part of the new ecosystem
The agency issued licenses last year to more than 3,371 growers in the Rif and recorded nearly 4,200 tons of legal cannabis produced.
Near the town of Bab Berred, the Biocannat cooperative buys cannabis from around 200 small farmers during the harvest season. The raw plant is transformed into neat bottles of CBD oil, jars of lotion and chocolate that have spread on the shelves of pharmacies in Morocco.
Some batches are ground into industrial hemp for textiles. For medicinal use and export, some of the product is refined into products with less than 1% THC, the psychoactive compound that gives cannabis its flavor.
Aziz Makhlouf, director of the cooperative, said legalization created an entire ecosystem that employed more than just farmers.
“There are those who do packaging, those who do transport, those who do irrigation – all of these are possible through legalization,” said Makhlouf, a native of Bab Berred whose family has long been involved in growing cannabis.
Legalization brought licenses, formal cooperatives, and the hope of a steady income without fear of arrest. But the change also highlighted the limits of the reform. The legal market remains too small to absorb the hundreds of thousands who depend on the illicit trade, and the new rules have introduced more pressure, farmers and experts say.
Protests broke out in parts of nearby Taounate in August after cooperatives there failed to pay growers for their harvest. The farmers waved signs reading “No Legalization No Rights” and “Enough Delay”, angry that the payments they were promised for working legally at the behest of the government never came, local media reported.
Illegal cultivation persists
The government insists the transformation is just beginning and the challenges can be overcome.
But black market demand remains high. Today, cannabis is grown legally on 14,300 acres (5,800 hectares) in the Rif, while more than 67,000 acres (27,100 hectares) are used for illegal cultivation, according to government data. The number of farmers entering the legal system remains small compared to the number believed to be linked to the illegal market.
An April report by the Global Institute Against Transnational Organized Crime characterized the industry as “one of the coexistence of both markets rather than a decisive transition from one to the other.”
“A substantial proportion of the population continues to rely on illicit cannabis networks for income generation, perpetuating the very dynamic the state is trying to reform,” the report said.
For now, Morocco’s two cannabis economies exist side by side – one regulated and one banned – as the country tries to bring a centuries-old trade out of the shadows without leaving its farmers behind.
“Cannabis is legal now, as is peppermint,” Amraji said. “I never imagined that one day I would be authorized to grow it. I’m shocked.”
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Akram Oubachir contributed to this report.