“It was my personal consumption of cannabis that pushed me to go to Morocco. I wanted to see the day I consumed resin. See and know,” he confides to The Last Houremphasizing that he does not encourage the use of this drug. The Anderlechtois had visited the region of Chefchaouen and Ketama, in the province of Tangier-Tétouan-Al Hoceima, a region which according to him produces “the best of the best”, the “caviar of hashish”: the “frozen”, also called the “filtered” or “static”. François returned edified from this trip to Morocco where he saw “hundreds of hectares” of cannabis plantations in the Rif mountains, some of which are more than 2,000 meters above sea level.
In this region, cannabis cultivation is free, he says, admitting to not having witnessed any police intervention during his three stays. “We see units of the royal gendarmerie circulating on the main roads. But they do not venture into the village slopes and do not have a view of the fields. We leave the jbala who cultivate and produce in peace.” François said he was impressed by these tens of thousands of hectares of cannabis plantations which stretch as far as the eye can see. “At the end of the season, around mid-September, they form areas of bushes from which emanates the characteristic odor of the plant. And the police let it happen.”
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“The farmers I met are extremely welcoming and warm, but I quickly understood that there are questions that should not be asked about the arrangements they have with the authorities. The Moroccan authorities are not blind. So, we necessarily need arrangements so that the gendarmes look elsewhere than at the plantations, don’t you think,” explains the Anderlecht resident who was able to witness the processing of cannabis, from the fields to packaging. “They have large infrastructures, with quasi-industrial cold rooms where the temperature drops to minus 25 degrees, similar to those of our butcher shops,” he explains, noting that the activity employs an abundant workforce.
For the farmers of the Rif, growing cannabis is something natural. “They have been growing it for centuries. They don’t have the feeling that they are manufacturing an illegal product,” explains François, who recalls that the cultivation of cannabis is formally prohibited in Morocco. The young Belgian “has exceptional memories of the kindness of the families who welcomed me with open arms”. According to UN data, Morocco produced 23,000 tonnes of weed and 800 tonnes of resin in 2021, becoming one of the world’s leading cannabis supplying countries. Some 140,000 people, or even 400,000 according to some sources, make a living from this activity.
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