The Chamber of Representatives of the Moroccan Parliament approved this Tuesday by 61 votes in favor and 21 against the industrial and therapeutic use of cannabis.
The initiative, which had started in February from the Ministry of the Interior, in full accordance with the guidelines of the Royal Palace, has been approved in just four months.
And it was done in record time, despite the opposition of the deputies of the Islamist Party for Justice and Development (PJD), the group with the largest representation in Parliament.
The authorities of the world's largest producer of cannabis do not want to miss what they consider a great opportunity in the global market for therapeutic use.
The feasibility studies presented by the Ministry of the Interior at the time have an annual growth of 30% in the world and 60% in Europe.
More information
Congress will develop a proposal to regulate the medicinal use of cannabis
The Government of Morocco promotes the legalization of the therapeutic use of cannabis
The Minister of the Interior, Abdeluafi Laftit, already warned on April 29 before the deputies in Parliament: "The objective is to go quickly, because we are already late."
Once this bill called 13-21 is published in the
Official State Gazette
, something that will be processed shortly, Morocco will thus join countries such as Canada, —which allowed medicinal use in 2001—, the United States —where therapeutic use is legal in 33 of its 50 states—, Germany —where it is bought with prescription since 2017— or Portugal, where it is possible to buy it in pharmacies since 2018. In Spain, the Congress of Deputies has just taken a first step to propose a possible regulation of the use of cannabis for some medicinal purposes, with the recent creation of a subcommittee that undertakes to prepare a proposal in this regard within six months.
Moroccan authorities estimate that some 400,000 Moroccans belonging to 60,000 families live on this plant, which is grown mainly in the north of the country. Most of the cultivated land, 80% of the total, barely exceeds one hectare, equivalent to a football field. At present, it is unknown who the main beneficiaries of the illicit hashish trade in Morocco are. Those in charge of the Interior Ministry hope that legal crops will progressively remove the population from the control of traffickers.
Interior calculated in its feasibility study that the international exit of Moroccan therapeutic cannabis will target the European market, especially Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Germany.
They predict a large volume of business on the continent, estimated at 20,800 million euros by 2028.
However, there are also experts who are skeptical about the profitability of the business.
The latter estimate that there is a lot of competition in Europe, that the European market for therapeutic cannabis is restricted, for the moment, to Portugal, Germany and the United Kingdom.
And that large pharmaceutical companies, such as GSK or Pfizer, have not yet dared to produce a drug derived from cannabis.
