Algeria
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| Algeria | |
|---|---|
| الجزائر (al-Jazā'ir) | |
| |
| Rolling hills in the Algerian countryside | |
| Capital | Algiers |
| Continent | Africa |
| Subregion | North Africa |
| Cannabis Status | |
| Legal Status | Illegal (medical and scientific use licensed) |
| Status Since | 2004 |
| Enforcement | Border interdiction of imported resin; cultivation carries life imprisonment |
| Documentation | |
| Growing Regions | 0 |
| Growing Areas | 1 |
| Accessions | 10 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Algeria is a country in North Africa on the Mediterranean, extending south across the Sahara. In 1869 Alphonse de Candolle published Cannabis sativa var. kif A.DC. for the plant "cultivated in Algeria under the name Kif or Tekrouri".[1]
De Candolle took the description from a note that the physician Isidore Dukerley had read to the Société botanique de France in November 1866, and Dukerley had come to the subject through a court case: he had been appointed an expert in a fraud prosecution at Bône, now Annaba, where growers had bought seed sold to them as tekrouri and harvested ordinary hemp.[2]
Herbarium sheets gathered in the country between 1834 and 1960 record the plant both in cultivation and on uncultivated ground.
Algerian police, gendarmerie and customs seized 181,942.901 kilograms of cannabis resin in 2014, against 211,512.773 kilograms in 2013.[3] Cannabis is prohibited outside licensed medical and scientific use (see Legal status).[4]
Geography
Algeria reaches from a narrow Mediterranean littoral over the Atlas Mountains into the desert, which covers most of its area.[citation needed] Herbarium sheets of the plant were gathered at Bône on the coast in 1834 and at the agricultural colony at Sig near Oran in 1850; later sheets were taken at Algiers and at Maison-Carrée, now El Harrach, on its eastern edge.[5][6][7][8][9]
In the desert, a sheet of 1858 was gathered in the oasis of Guémar in the Souf, Chevalier 42218 at Adrar in 1931 and Simonneau's sheet in the irrigation perimeter at Igli, in what its label calls the Sahara oranais, in 1960.[10][11][12]
The Council of the European Union reported that most of the 2014 seizures were made in the Wilaya of Tlemcen, on the border with Morocco, where consignments of under 200 kilograms move on pack animals, on foot in backpacks or in vehicles; and that the Tlemcen route was the favoured way of bringing drugs into the country although the border was closed.[3]
Demographics
Agriculture
Two sheets gathered in 1850, Durando's and Barat's, were taken at the Union agricole du Sig near Oran, a settler agricultural colony; Barat's carries the further note that the plant was originaire de l'Orient.[6][7] The sheet of 1858 was grown in the oasis of Guémar.[10] In 1942 Pasquier gathered a plant raised under glass at the Institut agricole de Maison-Carrée near Algiers from seed brought out of the Sahara.[13]
Two sheets record the plant growing without cultivation: Brichi's of 1909 from lieux incultes at Algiers and Faurel's of 1930 from terres incultes near the dunes at Maison-Carrée.[8][9]
Cannabis in Algeria
History
The ethnobotanist Jamal Bellakhdar places the shift that made the Moroccan Rif a resin-producing region in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the resin-yielding cultivars probably brought there from eastern Algeria.[14]
Dukerley's note, written from Batna in August 1866 and read at the session of 9 November, set out how the seed and the pistillate plants of the variety grown under the names kif and tekrouri differ from ordinary hemp; he inclined to treating it as a form of the same species rather than a separate one.[2] At the end of July 1865 he had been appointed an expert at Bône in a case in which cultivators had been sold seed as tekrouri and had harvested ordinary hemp; he and his co-experts found the seized sample to be a mixture in which hemp seed predominated. The merchant was sentenced to fifteen days' imprisonment.[2]
Three years later de Candolle carried the account into the Prodromus, defining the variety kif as the plant "cultivated in Algeria under the name Kif or Tekrouri" on account of its intoxicating inflorescences, referring the reader to Dukerley for the full description. He noted that both Dukerley and Robert Christison denied any specific distinction from ordinary hemp.[1] Brichi's 1909 sheet is filed at Brno as Cannabis sativa L. var. kif A.DC.[15]
Cultivation
The sheets that record the plant as a crop were gathered at the agricultural union at Sig, in the oasis of Guémar in the Souf and under glass at the agricultural institute at Maison-Carrée.[6][10][13]
In April 2007 the gendarmerie found cannabis growing with opium poppy in oasis gardens at Aougrout, Talmine and Tinerkouk, then in the wilaya of Adrar.[16] Since 2019 these communes have been part of a wilaya of their own with Timimoun.[17]: 14 The growing area there is Gourara.
Preparations and consumption
Religious and cultural use
Trade and commerce
The Council of the European Union recorded a large number of seizures of cannabis resin in Algeria since 2000. The 2014 total of 181,942.901 kilograms was 13.98 per cent below that of 2013, a fall the Council judged to be "presumably owing to the gradual sealing of the border with Morocco" through more security personnel and support from army units. It described Algeria as appearing "to be a transit zone for sending drugs to the Middle East and Europe", while the number of people using drugs in the country had also risen.[3]
The same report set out the routes the enforcement authorities had identified: the Carthage road from Remchi in Tlemcen through Ben M'hidi and El Taref to Tunis; a route from Ghadames and Maghnia to Rouissat in Ouargla; and three routes towards the Libyan south, from El-Kerma near Oran, from Naama and from Tlemcen, each ending at Illizi. Trafficking was rising in the Wilaya of Béchar, and the capital and the Wilaya of Ouargla were seeing larger seizures of resin in transit.[3]
Legal status
Cannabis is prohibited outside authorised medical and scientific use. The governing statute is Law n° 04-18 of 25 December 2004 on the prevention and suppression of the illicit use and trafficking of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances.[4]
The law defines cannabis on the model of the 1961 Single Convention, as the flowering or fruiting tops of the plant excluding seeds and leaves not accompanied by tops, from which the resin has not been extracted; it separately defines the cannabis plant as any plant of the genus.[4] Article 4 provides that authorisation for the operations covered by articles 17, 19 and 20 may be granted only where the plants, substances or preparations are intended for medical or scientific purposes, subject to an enquiry into the applicant's character; it may not be granted to anyone convicted under the law; article 5 reserves the power to grant it to the minister responsible for health.[4]
Article 12 punishes illicit consumption or possession for personal use with two months to two years' imprisonment and a fine of 5,000 to 50,000 dinars. Either penalty may be imposed alone. Article 17 punishes illicit production, manufacture, possession, sale, purchase for sale, storage, extraction, preparation, distribution, brokerage, dispatch, transit or transport with ten to twenty years and a fine of 5,000,000 to 50,000,000 dinars. Article 20 punishes the illicit cultivation of the cannabis plant, the opium poppy or the coca bush with life imprisonment.[4] A person charged under article 12 whose condition is found by medical assessment to require treatment may instead be ordered to undergo a detoxification cure, after which the court may decline to impose the article 12 penalties.[4]
The statute was amended in 2025. Law n° 25-03 of 1 July 2025 modifies and completes Law 04-18 without replacing it, extending capital punishment to further aggravated trafficking offences, providing for parallel financial investigations and the reward of informants, allowing the withdrawal of acquired nationality on conviction and introducing drug screening for job applicants and for students.[18]
Growing Regions
Landrace cannabis growing regions currently documented on the wiki: No growing regions documented yet.
Growing Areas
Landrace cannabis growing areas currently documented on the wiki:
| Growing Area | Has growing region |
|---|---|
| Gourara |
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anon. s.n., Guémar (1858) | Herbarium specimen from the oasis of Guémar (1858) | ||
| Barat s.n., Sig (1850) | Herbarium specimen from the Herbier Barat, Sig (1850) | ||
| Brichi s.n., Alger (1909) | Brichi herbarium specimen, Algiers (1909) | ||
| Chevalier 42218 (1931) | Chevalier herbarium specimen, Adrar (1931) | ||
| Dukerley s.n., Bône (s.d.) | Dukerley herbarium specimen, Annaba (undated) | ||
| Durando s.n., Sig (1850) | Durando herbarium specimen, Sig (1850) | ||
| Faurel s.n., Maison-Carrée (1930) | Faurel herbarium specimen, El Harrach (1930) | ||
| Pasquier s.n., Maison-Carrée (1942) | Pasquier herbarium specimen, El Harrach (1942) | ||
| Simonneau s.n., Igli (1960) | Simonneau herbarium specimen, Igli (1960) | ||
| Steinheil s.n., Bône (1834) | Steinheil herbarium specimen, Annaba (1834) |
Conservation status
Recent news
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Candolle, Alphonse de (1869). Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis (in Latina). Vol. 16. Paris: Victor Masson et fils. p. 31.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Dukerley, Isidore (1866). "Note sur les différences que présente avec le chanvre ordinaire la variété de cette espèce connue en Algérie sous les noms de Kif et de Tekrouri". Bulletin de la Société botanique de France (in français). 13: 401–405.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Council of the European Union (13 April 2015). Note from the Spanish Regional Chair of the Dublin Group to the Dublin Group: Algeria (Report). Council of the European Union. 7850/15.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 "Loi n° 04-18 du 13 Dhou El Kaada 1425 correspondant au 25 décembre 2004 relative à la prévention et à la répression de l'usage et du trafic illicites de stupéfiants et de substances psychotropes" (PDF). Journal officiel de la République algérienne (in français). Office national de lutte contre la drogue et la toxicomanie. 26 December 2004.
- ↑ "Occurrence 731718635: Cannabis sativa L. (Steinheil, Bône, 1834)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Occurrence 731718630: Cannabis sativa L. (Durando, Sig, 1850)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Occurrence 731738640: Cannabis sativa L. (Barat, Sig, 1850)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Occurrence 6176582350: Cannabis sativa L. (Brichi, Algiers, 1909)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Occurrence 731718197: Cannabis sativa L. (Faurel, Maison-Carrée, 1930)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 "Occurrence 731738679: Cannabis sativa L. (Guémar, 1858)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence 1987025402: Cannabis sativa L. (Chevalier 42218, Adrar, 1931)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "Occurrence 731718198: Cannabis sativa L. (Simonneau, Igli, 1960)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Occurrence 731718383: Cannabis sativa L. (Pasquier, Maison-Carrée, 1942)". GBIF. Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ Bellakhdar, Jamal (2013). "L'histoire du chanvre au Maghreb". Hespéris-Tamuda. XLVIII: 107–141. ISSN 0018-1005.
- ↑ "BRNU301895: Cannabis sativa L. var. kif A.DC". JACQ Virtual Herbaria. Masaryk University. Retrieved 23 September 2026.
- ↑ "La culture du Pavot et du cannabis prend de l'ampleur en Algérie". El Watan (in français). 14 May 2007. Retrieved 21 October 2026 – via Afrik.com.
- ↑ "Loi n° 19-12 du 14 Rabie Ethani 1441 correspondant au 11 décembre 2019 modifiant et complétant la loi n° 84-09 du 4 février 1984 relative à l'organisation territoriale du pays" (PDF). Journal officiel de la République algérienne (in français) (78): 12–14. 18 December 2019.
- ↑ "Toxicomanie, trafics, récidive: ce que prévoit la nouvelle loi antidrogue de juillet 2025". Legal Doctrine (in français). 24 July 2025. Retrieved 23 September 2026.