Talk:Kif

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Discussion for: Kif • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

The page treats kif across the whole range of the word: the Moroccan and Algerian smoking mixture of chopped cannabis and tobacco; kif as the name of the plant, and in Morocco of the traditional cannabis of the Rif; the Algerian kif and tekrouri and the botanical variety named after them; and the neighbouring names takrouri, grifa, kef and kief. How kif is made is covered in the section "Making kif". The turn from kif to hashish in the Rif is summarised here and told at length on Hashish and Cannabis in Morocco, which also carry the plant's morphology, chemistry and genetics. The religious and social use is summarised here and belongs in more detail to Cannabis in Riffian culture.

Data verification

Record source conflicts, dating problems and sources not used here. Keep narrative content on the article.

Discussion

Sources

Protectorate law was read in the Bulletin officiel itself: the dahir of 4 May 1915 (no. 133), the dahir of 3 November 1919 (no. 369), the tobacco dahir of 12 November 1932 (no. 1049, arts. 1, 43–44, 52, 60 and the penalties) and the dahir of 24 April 1954 (no. 2167, p. 640, read on the page image). The 1915 and 1919 issues were read in their embedded OCR, which is poor; nothing is quoted from them.
Law 13-21 was read in the French official translation edition of the Bulletin officiel (no. 7010, 5 August 2021) on the Secretariat General of the Government's site; the Arabic edition was not read. The decree of 18 March 2022 naming the three provinces was read on the page image of Bulletin officiel no. 7080, p. 527.
The drug law of 21 May 1974 (dahir portant loi no. 1-73-282) was not reached in the Bulletin officiel. Its articles are cited from Blickman (2017) and from the text of Law 13-21, which names it.
The UN Bulletin on Narcotics articles (Bouquet 1950 and 1951, Benabud 1957) were read in the UNODC web edition, which gives each article's page range but no page numbers. The web edition's title of Benabud's article misprints Morocco as "Monaco".
Dukerley (1866) and the recorded discussion after it (pp. 401–406), and de Candolle's Prodromus 16(1), p. 31, were read in Internet Archive scans.
Joseph (1975) was read in the printed chapter (pp. 185–194 of Cannabis and Culture). Mikuriya (1967) was read only in its published abstract.
Afsahi (2017) (Tempo Social) rests on interviews with elderly smokers and on French writings of the protectorate period (Mauran, Guichard, Ladreit de Lacharrière), which it quotes; those quotations are cited to Afsahi.

Where the sources disagree

The share of tobacco. Afsahi's informants: nine parts of kif to one of tobacco, or two to one. Joseph (1965–66): about seven to three. Mikuriya: equal parts, which Joseph calls wrong. The monopoly's jyed: a third pure kif, later a fifth (Benabud). Bellakhdar gives the monopoly's mixtures as 33/67 and 20/80. Blickman, citing El Atouabi, gives two-thirds cannabis to one-third tobacco for the protectorate product. All are given; none is harmonised.
Which parts. Bellakhdar, Afsahi, Mikuriya and Bouquet describe flowering tops; Joseph describes the leaves stripped from the harvested plant; Hooker and Ball wrote of chopped leaves. Mouna (2009, p. 191) calls kif "cannabis resin mixed with tobacco", which no other source here does; it is not used.
The three kinds. Chouvy and Afsahi (citing Bellakhdar 1997) call ktami, zerwali and gnawi traditional qualities of the kif plant, all needing water; Bellakhdar (2013, p. 112) calls them merchantable grades named after their districts. Chouvy (2022) asks whether Brunel's and Benabud's named kinds were cultigens or separate landraces. The article gives the names and attributes each reading.
The Sufi brotherhoods. Brunel (1955), through Mouna (2009) and Afsahi and Mouna (2014), has the Heddawa obliged to smoke kif and the Aissawa and Hamadsha smoking it during the dhikr. Joseph found that in the Rif of the 1960s the local brotherhoods did not encourage kif and most frowned on it. Different places and dates; both are given.
The pipe. Stems of olive or apricot wood (Afsahi's informants), walnut (Joseph), oleander, Jasminum fruticans or laurustinus (Bellakhdar), reed (Ladreit de Lacharrière, 1913, via Afsahi). Afsahi gives about 80 cm for the early pipes; the pipes of the Souss are described to her as minuscule. No source read gives a standard length.
Packet size. Bouquet (1951) gives the monopoly's packets as 5 g for 1941–1950; Guichard (1919, via Afsahi) gives 10 g packets in 1919, as does a Spanish-zone dahir of 1916 in a newspaper transcription.
The Spanish zone. Benabud: the monopoly lost its rights there in 1940 and the Spaniards then permitted cultivation. Joseph and Bellakhdar: Spain did not try to suppress kif. Blickman: a decree of 1935 restricted cultivation to villages of Ketama, Beni Seddat and Beni Khaled; and a Spanish-zone dahir of 1954 still licensed cultivation under the monopoly. The Spanish-zone Boletín Oficial was not reached; the article gives Benabud, Joseph and Bellakhdar, each attributed.
The 1932 dahir. Bellakhdar dates it 22 December 1932; the Bulletin officiel gives 12 November 1932. Bellakhdar's two permitted perimeters (the Marrakesh region and the Gharb) are not in the dahir's text, which lets the company have kif grown under special permits.
The word. Chouvy and Afsahi (2014) derive kif from kayf "for pleasure"; Afsahi and Mouna (2014) gloss it "supreme happiness"; the Real Academia gives Moroccan Arabic kif "Indian hemp", from kayf "good humour", from classical kayfa "how". Chouvy (2022) calls the shift to plant and mixture unclear. Chouvy (2024) says the landrace's name changed from kif to beldiya; Afsahi (2017) says kif now names the local variety as against the imports.
Chouvy (2022), note 8 says the 1791 English mention of khaf comes from a journey "commissioned by Mohammed V (1927–1957)", which cannot be right for 1791. The article cites only the date and the form.

Not used

Benabud's (1957) clinical figures for patients of the Berrechid psychiatric hospital and his remarks on the Aissawa and Hamadsha, which describe hospital cases, not smokers at large.
Mouna's (2009) description of the Heddawa as a branch of the Ismaili Shia, given without a source.
Russo and colleagues (2004) on night vision in Rif kif smokers, and Merzouki and Molero Mesa (2002) on the kif preparation: abstracts only were read.
Chouvy (2020, Belgeo): only the abstract was read. It proposes treating the kif variety as a landrace for protected designations of origin.
A 2023 interview in El Faro de Ceuta with Francisco Javier Hernández Navarro on kif in the Spanish protectorate: an interview, not his book.
Press reports of the area under the local variety in 2025 that could not be read.

Open items

Mikuriya (1967): the full text, for his account of cultivation and the equal-parts mixture.
Brunel, Le monachisme errant dans l'Islam: Sidi Heddi et les Heddawa (1955), the source behind the Heddawa material, and Guichard, "Étude sur le kif dans la région de Marrakech" (1919): read only through later writers.
The Bulletin officiel of 5 June 1974 (no. 3214) for the 1974 drug law, and the Spanish-zone Boletín Oficial issues of 1916, 1917, 1935 and 1954.
Any act of the national cannabis agency on the local variety: none was found; the 2024 approval is known only from the press.
The English form khaf of 1791 (William Lempriere's account of his journey to Morocco) and Laffitte's study of the French word kif (2005).
A photograph of a sebsi for the article.