Ouazzane
More actions
| Ouazzane | |
|---|---|
| Ouezzane | |
| ActiveCannabis last recorded here in 2023 | |
| Hierarchy | |
| Growing Region | Rif Mountains |
| Geography | |
| Country | Morocco |
| Province/State | Ouazzane Province |
| Coordinates | 34.80, -5.58 |
| Landscape | |
| Area | 2,140 km² |
| Terrain | Hills and mountain valleys on the southern edge of the Rif, with rain-fed and irrigated fields; approximately Ouazzane Province |
| Climate | |
| Climate Type | Mediterranean |
| Growing history | |
| Dated accessions | 2023 |
| Documentation | |
| Appellations | 0 |
| Accessions | 2 |
| Conservation | |
| Populations | none documented yet |
Ouazzane is a landrace cannabis growing area in Ouazzane Province, in northern Morocco, where kif is grown for hashish. According to figures cited by Morocco's interior ministry, about 90,000 households depend on cannabis, and the Transnational Institute's Tom Blickman places their production in the northern Rif regions of Al Hoceima, Chefchaouen and Ouazzane.[1] The province was formed in 2009 from seventeen communes of the provinces of Chefchaouen and Sidi Kacem and covers about 2,040 square kilometres.[2]: 3–4 It is not among the three provinces, Al Hoceima, Chefchaouen and Taounate, in which Moroccan law allows cannabis to be licensed.[3]
Before 2000
Jamal Bellakhdar names the ghzawa tobacco of Ouezzane and Zoumi, with the ktami of Ketama and Bab Berred, among the tobaccos of the Rif that were held to be of the first quality, and suggests that this old tobacco growing helped cannabis to spread in the Rif from the second half of the nineteenth century.[4]: 129 Kenza Afsahi and Khalid Mouna write that during the Rif War of 1921–1926 Marshal Lyautey authorised kif growing in the town of Ouazzane and its surroundings, so that the Ouazzaniya brotherhood, a powerful religious institution in the north, would not declare the war of Abdelkrim el-Khattabi against Spain a jihad.[5] The daily Al Akhbar, in a review published by Le360 in 2026, says that the provinces of Ouazzane and Larache took up cannabis growing in the 1980s, after the first production zones.[6]
Fields since 2000
The surveys that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime carried out with the Moroccan authorities in 2003 to 2005 were drawn before the province existed and mapped cannabis by commune. Their zone ended at the town of Ouazzane. On the 2004 map the communes of Zoumi and Kalaat Bouqorra, north-east of the town, are in the highest class, with more than 2,500 hectares of cannabis each, and Mokrisset, Ain Beida, Brikcha and Asjen in lower classes.[7]: 9 The surveyors visited the edges of the neighbouring province of Sidi Kacem in 2003 and 2004 and found no cannabis field there.[7]
In 2012 the news site Hespress called Zoumi the heart of hashish growing in the province. Its reporters, who reached the commune by a hard road from the Sidi Kacem side, saw nothing across its farmland but hundreds of hectares of the crop. A grower told them that farmers had brought in a seed called al-Pakistaniya, imported from Pakistan, for its higher yield after years of drought.[8] The same year Larbi Mharchi, a councillor of the Authenticity and Modernity Party, said in the upper house of parliament that about 550 hectares of land belonging to the Ministry of Habous and Islamic Affairs in the Ouazzane region were let to cannabis growers. People from the region told Bladi.net that the practice was well known round Mokrisset, about 50 kilometres north of the town, where Habous land had been let to growers for about ten years.[9] In an interview with Hespress, the president of the provincial council put the Habous land under the crop at more than 1,000 hectares, and a resident the site quoted named Zoumi, Mokrisset, Brikcha and the douars of Al-Meskar and Bouqorra.[8]
Some of the fields are irrigated. In August 2017 H24info, citing the daily Assabah, reported that associations in the commune of Brikcha had published photographs of pipes and pumps drawing large amounts of water, and that thousands of fish had died after the streams ran dry from the irrigation needs of the kif growers.[10] In May 2018 H24info, citing Al Akhbar, reported clashes between cannabis growers over springs and wells in the Chefchaouen and Ouazzane region.[11] A report of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime in 2020 placed Morocco's production on tens of thousands of farms concentrated round the towns of Ouazzane, Al Hoceima and Chefchaouen.[12]: 6
Seed and research
The genebank of INRA Maroc holds two lots of local seed collected in the province in May 2023, at Faj Hanout and Aghbalou (see Accessions below). For a study published in 2026, Oumayma Boussetta and colleagues compared seed of the local plant collected in July 2023 at Ketama, Taounate and Ouazzane, which they call three mountain cultivation areas. The seed came from a legally operating supplier and from commercial cultivation. It gave the highest extraction yield and the highest phenolic and flavonoid contents of the three, and the authors attribute the differences between the sites to terroir.[13]
Legal status
A decree of March 2022, under Law 13-21 on the licit uses of cannabis, allows its cultivation to be licensed only in the provinces of Al Hoceima, Chefchaouen and Taounate.[14] Before the law, in June 2014, the Istiqlal party held a meeting with kif growers at Zoumi under the slogan that the economic development of Zoumi and Mokrisset depended on legalising the crop; speakers from the floor asked for the commune of Sidi Redouane to be counted among the areas where growing would be allowed by law.[15] In April 2025 the authorities at Sidi Redouane announced by loudspeaker a complete ban on illicit crops, meaning kif, which the newspaper Akhbarona calls widespread in several douars of the commune; the paper notes that the commune and the province are outside the licensed zones.[3] In 2026 local associations and commune presidents were asking for Ouazzane and Larache to be brought into the licensed zones. The interior minister, Abdelouafi Laftit, answered that any extension depended on demand from the industries processing the plant for pharmaceutical uses.[6]
Accessions
| Accession ID | Name | Collected | Locality |
|---|---|---|---|
| INM-MAR-OUZ-0520230001 | Laghdir 101 (Faj Hanout) General Population 2023 | Faj Hanout | |
| INM-MAR-OUZ-0520230002 | Tanakoub 102 (Aghbalou) General Population 2023 | Aghbalou |
Recent news
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See also
References
- ↑ Blickman, Tom (March 2017). Morocco and Cannabis: Reduction, containment or acceptance (PDF) (Report). Drug Policy Briefing. Transnational Institute. Retrieved 15 October 2026.
- ↑ Province de Ouezzane (March 2016). Monographie de la Province de Ouezzane (PDF) (Report) (in français). Ministère de l'Intérieur, Wilaya de la Région Tanger-Tétouan-Al Hoceima. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 عبد المومن حاج علي (11 April 2025). عبر مكبرات الصوت.. سلطات وزان تحذر الفلاحين من زراعة "الكيف" خارج القانون [Through loudspeakers, the Ouazzane authorities warn farmers against growing kif outside the law]. Akhbarona (in العربية). Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ Bellakhdar, Jamal (2017). "Les voies suivies par le chanvre dans sa conquête du Maghreb" (PDF). Hespéris-Tamuda (in français). LII (2): 117–150. ISSN 0018-1005. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ Afsahi, Kenza; Mouna, Khalid (2014). "Cannabis dans le Rif central (Maroc). Construction d'un espace de déviance". EspacesTemps.net (in français). Retrieved 15 October 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 "Législatives: le dossier épineux du cannabis s'invite dans la campagne". Le360 (in français). 17 September 2026. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime; Agence pour la Promotion et le Développement Economique et Social des Préfectures et Provinces du Nord du Royaume (May 2005). Maroc: Enquête sur le cannabis 2004 (PDF) (Report) (in français). UNODC.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 خالد البرحلي ونور الدين لشهب (1 June 2012). وسط جَماعَة "زُومِي".. عَاصمة إنتاج الحشيش بإقليـم وزَّان [Inside Zoumi commune, the capital of hashish production in Ouazzane Province]. Hespress (in العربية). Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ Laamoudi, Farid (20 April 2012). "Les terres des Habous servent-elles à la culture de cannabis ?". Bladi.net (in français). Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ El Adnani, Abir (28 August 2017). "A Ouezzane, des poissons menacés par la culture du cannabis". H24info (in français). Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ "Chefchaouen-Ouazzane: nouvelles tensions entre cultivateurs de cannabis à cause du manque d'eau". H24info (in français). 17 May 2018. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ Herbert, Matt; Gallien, Max (May 2020). A rising tide: trends in production, trafficking and consumption of drugs in North Africa (PDF) (Report). Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Retrieved 22 October 2026.
- ↑ Boussetta, Oumayma; Khibech, Oussama; Essadek, Abdessadek; Jodeh, Shehdeh; Idrissi Yahyaoui, Meryem; Asehraou, Abdeslam; Lai, Chin-Hung; Ramdani, Mohammed (18 July 2026). "Terroir-driven phenolic chemotypes and antioxidant/antimicrobial activities of Beldia (Cannabis sativa L.) seed extracts". Journal of Cannabis Research. 8 (1) 106. doi:10.1186/s42238-026-00468-y.
- ↑ "Décret n° 2-22-159 du 15 chaabane 1443 (18 mars 2022) pris pour l'application de certaines dispositions de la loi n° 13-21 relative aux usages licites du cannabis" (PDF). Bulletin Officiel (in français) (7080) (Édition de traduction officielle ed.). Rabat: 527. 7 April 2022. Retrieved 15 October 2026.
- ↑ الاستقلاليون يلاقون مزارعين لنبتة الكيف وسط جماعة زُومِـي [Istiqlal members meet kif growers in Zoumi commune]. Hespress (in العربية). 15 June 2014. Retrieved 22 October 2026.