Beyond the Mediterranean coastline, northern Morocco’s mountains are pocked with small scale dope farms. The government has tried hard to eradicate them, to little effect, but one governor sees green in the “illicit” plants.
Governor Mohamed Boudra of Hoceima-Taounate, the country’s northern region that is rich with high-enducing resin, told Business Week that it hopes to push through a bill in the next three years that would legalize medicinal marijuana for export.
Currently, the $10 billion trade takes place underground.
Although farmers are persecuted by the government, often losing their carefully-tended crops to slashing and burning – the go-to method of control, scores continue to take their chances. Why? Because there is a real market for marijuana – locally and abroad.
The government has attempted to persuade farmers to switch to almonds and olives, according to Business Week, but hashish has proved too lucrative and successful. So Boudra wants to pump the profit out of pushers’ pockets and into the trade deficit, which the paper reports to devour 23 percent of the national GDP.
Instead of letting allowing middlemen and drug traffickers make all the profit off this pay up to $1,780 for a kilogram of hashish.
Before any bill can be passed, lawmakers say that it’s first important to do the necessary legwork in order to find the right market for their marijuana. Obviously a Muslim country can’t sell THC-laced drugs to the warlords of central Africa. Instead, activists recommend a study of the herb’s medicinal benefits.
“We have to ensure that any legalization is done in an optimal fashion,”Abdelhalim Allaoui, a lawmaker with the ruling Justice and Development Party, told Business Week.
“We need to establish what the medicinal virtues of the plant are and then think of exports, pharmaceutical industry developments, and how to draw foreign investment. This is a promising sector for the economy.”
Legal medical marijuana in Morocco would be a first in the Muslim world, and will obviously be approached very gently, but Israel has one of the world’s most progressive medical marijuana programs.
Farms thrive in relative secret though laws governing them were relaxed in the beginning of 2012.
Image of marijuana plants via Shutterstock
Henry Ford used a frame in one his earlier cars made from hemp. The paper/cardboard industry was another enemy of the hemp plant due to it’s high quality product. Today due to internet there is widespread growing popularity for hemp products like rope, soap, clothing etc. Hemp is one of natures best plants and cures to alot of health problems and hemp oats are a great grain to eat. Prohibition of hemp is not about getting high it’s about everything I stated in this reply and in the other one.
Sidney
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Canada
Marijuana cures cancer, diabetes, asthma and lots of other health problems hence why it’s been made illegal. Rick Simpson from Nova Scotia, Canada has cured over 5000 people by giving them marijuana oil. You Tube “Rick Simpson Phoenix Tears”.
Sidney
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia
Canada
Citation needed
The link I provided to the You Tube video among other videos clearly shows hat hemp as well as certain fruits and vegetables and herbs cure cancer.
Sidney