Talk:Ouazzane

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Discussion for: Ouazzane • View • Links • Related changes

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Page scope

Ouazzane treats Ouazzane as a cannabis growing area: Ouazzane Province on the southern edge of the Rif, with the communes the sources name (Zoumi, Mokrisset, Kalaat Bouqorra, Brikcha, Sidi Redouane). It covers the history of the crop there, the fields reported since 2000, the seed collected there and its legal status. The province as an administrative unit would take Ouazzane Province; a page for the town would take the title Ouazzane (city).

Data verification

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

Discussion

Why Ouazzane is a growing area

• Blickman (Transnational Institute, 2017), using interior-ministry figures, names Ouazzane with Al Hoceima and Chefchaouen as the northern Rif regions where cannabis production is concentrated. Herbert and Gallien (GI-TOC, 2020, p. 6) place production round the towns of Ouazzane, Al Hoceima and Chefchaouen.
• Press reports name growing in particular communes: Zoumi (Hespress, 1 June 2012; 15 June 2014), Mokrisset (Bladi.net, 20 April 2012), Brikcha (H24info, 28 August 2017) and Sidi Redouane (Akhbarona, 11 April 2025).
• The 2004 survey's map of cannabis by commune (p. 9) shows Zoumi and Kalaat Bouqorra in its highest class, more than 2,500 ha each.
• Two genebank lots of INRA Maroc were collected in the province in May 2023, at Faj Hanout (in Ain Beida commune, by the map data) and Aghbalou (in Teroual commune), and Boussetta and colleagues (2026) analysed seed from Ouazzane collected in July 2023.
• The area sits under Rif Mountains, with which the sources group it.

Growing status

The status is Active: press reports from 2012 to 2025 describe the crop growing in the province's communes, and seed was collected there in 2023. The ban announced at Sidi Redouane in April 2025 is a ban, not a statement that growing ended; the same report describes kif as widespread there.

Extent

• The sources name Ouazzane as a province or region and, inside it, the communes of Zoumi, Mokrisset, Kalaat Bouqorra, Brikcha and Sidi Redouane. Ain Beida and Asjen appear in the lower classes of the 2004 survey map. Every one of these communes lies in today's Ouazzane Province.
• The sources name no cannabis in the province's other communes (Masmouda, Bni Quolla, Ounnana, Teroual, Zghira, Sidi Bousber, Sidi Ahmed Cherif, Lamjaara, M'zefroune). That is a gap in the sources, not evidence that none is grown there; the genebank lot from Aghbalou falls in Teroual.
• The province covers 2,038.87 km² by the provincial monograph of 2016, the figure rounded in the article.
• The map point (34.80, −5.58) is the town of Ouazzane, close to the point Boussetta and colleagues give for their Ouazzane seed (34°48′N, 5°35′W).

How the border is drawn

• The border is a proxy drawn on Ouazzane Province (OpenStreetMap administrative relation 3545758), about 2,140 km² as the map line measures it, the figure in the infobox; the article gives the provincial monograph's 2,038.87 km². Every commune the sources name and both genebank lots lie inside it, and the town of Ouazzane is the map point.
• No bare ground or open water lies at the province's edge, so the line is the province's own.
• The line meets the neighbouring growing areas Chefchaouen, Taounate and Beni Zeroual on their lines. Rif Mountains reaches south-west over the province to take the area in.

Sources and conflicts

• The surveys of 2003–2005 predate the province, created in 2009. Their zone stops at the town of Ouazzane, and their text names five provinces (Al Hoceima, Chefchaouen, Larache, Taounate, Tétouan), with Sidi Kacem and Taza only visited. Commune figures exist only as map classes; the article gives the 2004 map (p. 9 of the report).
• Habous land. Bladi.net (2012) gives about 550 ha of Habous land let to growers in the Ouazzane region, from a councillor's statement in the upper house; Hespress (2012) gives more than 1,000 ha from the president of the provincial council. The article gives both, each with its source. Hespress names him Larbi Harchi, Bladi.net Larbi Mharchi.
• The Rif War. Afsahi and Mouna (2014) say that Lyautey authorised kif in the town of Ouazzane and its surroundings during the Rif War of 1921–1926. Tinasti, Afsahi and Mouna (Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 2025) place a zone where kif was allowed on the outskirts of Ouezzane around 1926. Afsahi (Tempo Social, 2017) places the free zone the French administration created in 1926 north of Fès. Neither cites a primary text for Ouazzane, so the article gives the 2014 account only as Afsahi and Mouna's.
• The 1980s. The date at which the province took up the crop comes from Al Akhbar as summarised by Le360 (17 September 2026), which gives no source for it.
• al-Pakistaniya. The seed's name and origin are a grower's account to Hespress (2012). The article does not identify it with any named hybrid.
• Boussetta and colleagues (2026) call the three sites "mountainous cultivation areas" and say the seed came from a legally operating supplier and from commercial cultivation. They name no commune for Ouazzane. The article reports this without inferring where in the province the seed was grown.
• Licensing. The decree of 2022 names three provinces. Le360 (4 April 2022) and H24info (17 March 2022) report that other provinces could be added later; no decree adding Ouazzane was found. Akhbarona (2025) and Le360 (2026) describe the province as outside the licensed zones.

Sources not used

• L'Hebdo (Finances News, 14 May 2015) says that the region of Ouezzane was declared free of cannabis in 2006 and that kif reappeared from 2008. The statement sits in a passage on Larache and gives no source, so it is not used.
• L'Observateur (3 August 2021) says that the law names "Ouazzane province at Oum Krissat". The decree of 2022 names only three provinces, so the statement is not used.
• Seizures of stored kif reported in the province (Bladi.net, December 2017, and later reports) are not evidence of where it was grown and are not used.