By wanting to keep police control over the entire commercial chain, Rabat risks stifling innovation, which brings economic benefits, argues researcher Khalid Tinasti.
Grandstand. Between regional and global pressures to reduce its illegal cannabis production, and the opportunity to turn some of it into a legal medical industry following the removal of cannabis from the list of substances without therapeutic value in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in December 2020, Morocco chose to respond by adopting its law on the legal uses of cannabis in July 2021.
Aiming at the development of a new industrial sector but supported by the Ministry of the Interior (and not those of industry, health or agriculture), the law embodies the crest path taken by the Moroccan authorities: on the one hand maintaining police control over the commercial chain, from the cultivation of the plant to the delivery of finished products, and on the other hoping to convince public opinion by developing an export sector with high added value, allowing solid economic opportunities for traditional farmers in the Rif mountains, the largest illegal production zone in the world.
This cautious approach is certainly in line with international law, which classifies cannabis as a substance as addictive as heroin or cocaine and imposes strict control of its legal uses. It also serves as a point of balance between conservatives and liberals in the country by legalizing certain uses while maintaining them under police supervision, this reform having been advocated and supported by two progressive bodies, the Special Commission on the Development Model (CSMD) and the Economic, Social and Environmental Council, while the Islamist Justice and Development party, that of the head of government at the time of the adoption of the law, voted against it in Parliament.
“Blockbuster” products
However, the complex convolutions of the adoption of the law, coupled with the dissemination of a public discourse projecting future domination of the global market as an argument to attract national and international investors, show the limits of the exercise.
First, the handling of the substance imposes administrative and logistical controls as strict as those required for morphine or other opiates, thus systematically reducing the economic sectors and markets promised to farmers who today easily sell their illegal crops. .
Then, the lucrative market for legal cannabis is that of recreational and non-medical uses, as suggested by the American market, the most mature in the world, whose sales projection in 2028 concerns 75% recreational, evaluating it at 43 billion dollars, compared to 14 billion for the medical sector.
The assessment that the competitive advantages (lower cost, proximity to European markets or agricultural know-how) would allow an explosion in demand for Moroccan medical cannabis and non-psychoactive cannabidiol (CBD) is also illusory. Because competitive advantages are reduced if innovation is limited. And it is through this innovation that an approach as restrictive as that of Morocco and many other countries, traditionally producers or transit and accused of irrigating rich Western consumer markets, suffocates.
Excessive vertical restrictions, through strict prescription and planning ranging from the choice of seeds to the finished products, leave no room for the arrival of “ blockbuster ” products, which allow the commercial successes and economic benefits promised. If a Western country with a large market eventually wanted to skip the costly legal and logistical complexities towards a bilateral trade deal to import Moroccan cannabis, the end product should be worth it.
Lucrative sectors
This innovation is even more important because the legal cannabis market is modest (in Asia, which increasingly dominates global trade, only Thailand is concerned). Less than fifty countries are concerned, including seven on the African continent (Morocco, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Rwanda, Zambia and recently Ghana). Among them, few plan to import, most wishing to move towards lucrative local agricultural sectors.
While no one can predict how the international market will evolve legally and economically in the current geopolitical context, nor how the total value chain will be built, the Moroccan legal market could better structure itself and prepare to enter the global market. The debate about production concentrated on the indigenous plant called beldiya, with more ecologically cultivation and contains less THC, and making it a product with a controlled designation of origin, is not trivial.
Above all, it is necessary to give credibility to this industry by focusing on the construction of a national cannabis market, by training doctors and pharmacists in its prescription, by supporting patients suffering from pain in its use, and by allowing the sale of the CBD and its derivatives at traditional grocers. Without a doubt, focus public efforts on the average Moroccan consumer by encouraging access to its benefits to as many people as possible before considering possible exports to Europe, and develop local know-how by consolidating it throughout the supply chain, would be real innovations brought by the legalization of cannabis in Morocco.