Is cannabis legal in Morocco? Law 13-21 in 2026

Everything rests on law no. 13-21 on the lawful uses of cannabis, promulgated by dahir no. 1-21-59 of 14 July 2021 and published in the Bulletin officiel of 5 August 2021. Its full text is online on the ANRAC website.

For these uses, the first article sets aside the dahir of 2 December 1922 on poisonous substances and the dahir of 24 April 1954 that banned kif hemp. Cultivation, processing, transport, sale, export and import can therefore be licensed. Article 2 defines industrial purposes as industries "notably food and cosmetic", other than medical and pharmaceutical ones, so cosmetics were covered from the outset.

Personal use stays outside the law. As the ANRAC's FAQ puts it, products are reserved for "exclusively medical, pharmaceutical or industrial" purposes. This places Morocco in the intermediate model described in our overview of the three legal models for cannabis worldwide, between full prohibition and recreational legalisation.

Growing outside the scheme remains an offence. Under article 50, any unlicensed activity incurs the penalties of the 1974 narcotics law. Article 51 punishes a licensed farmer who grows outside the approved areas, or beyond the licensed surface, with three months to two years in prison and a fine of 5,000 to 100,000 dirhams.

The National Agency for the Regulation of Cannabis-related Activities, a public body based in Rabat, is created by article 31. Article 3 lists nine activities, from nursery to export, that require its prior licence. A licence lasts ten years and can be renewed (article 27).

The whole sector is shaped by the conditions imposed on growers. Article 7 requires a grower to:

• hold Moroccan nationality and be of age;
• reside in a douar (a village) in one of the authorised provinces;
• belong to a cooperative created for this purpose;
• own the plot or hold the owner's consent.

Under article 8, seeds must be certified by the agency and the whole harvest delivered to the cooperative at the contract price. Any surplus beyond the contracted quantities is destroyed on site by a commission (article 10). The ANRAC FAQ names the provinces: Al Hoceima, Chefchaouen and Taounate, the historic heart of the Rif.

The law itself contains no percentage. Articles 6 and 17 refer to a rate "set by regulation", above which cultivation and manufacturing are allowed only for medical and pharmaceutical use. That figure comes from a joint order of 12 May 2022, no. 1297-22, and the ANRAC FAQ confirms it at 1% THC for industrial activities other than medical ones.

One point is still unclear. Beldia, the traditional plant population of the Rif, accounts for most of the legal acreage. No official public document states its measured THC content or explains how it was certified as compatible with the 1% cap. The agency says only that authorised varieties are either imported or local and certified by the agency itself.

The ANRAC releases its results in interviews and press releases, which the Moroccan news agency MAP relays. Its director general, quoted by Yabiladi on 22 April 2026, gave these figures for the 2025 season:

The same report, carried by Infomédiaire, mentions 7,526 inspections that led to licences being withdrawn or put into withdrawal proceedings. Two observations follow. Output grew by only 4% in a year, and beldia covers 83% of the acreage. The figures are also self-reported, since no detailed annual report from the agency is available online so far.

Little changes, for three reasons that add up.

The first reason is arithmetic. The French order of 30 December 2021 caps Δ⁹-THC at 0.30% in hemp extracts and the products containing them, as our article on the legal THC level in France explains. A Moroccan product that is compliant at 1% may therefore count as a narcotic in France.

The second concerns varieties. The same order restricts cultivation, import and commercial use to varieties listed in the EU common catalogue or the official French catalogue, and beldia appears in neither. Our guide to the EU catalogue of hemp varieties explains how to check. A route could only open through certified imported varieties, which made up 17% of the acreage in 2025.

The third is legal. The Court of Justice of the European Union's Kanavape ruling protects the free movement of CBD lawfully produced in another member state. Morocco is a third country, so its products come under the import regime and need the compliance documents required by the 2021 order.

One claim has yet to be verified. The ANRAC director lists France among the markets where Moroccan products are reportedly sold, without naming the products. They could be cosmetics or supplements as easily as flowers or resin. So far, no public source documents the measured THC of these products.

The legal sector exists alongside a long-standing illicit trade. In 2004 the UNODC estimated that Morocco supplied some 80% of the resin imported into Western Europe, and France reported at the time that 82% of the resin on its market was Moroccan. That figure dates from 2002 and should not be cited as current.

More recent French data come from the OFDT, the French drugs observatory. Its note on the drug supply in 2024 still calls Morocco the "main producing country" of resin. The OFDT measured an average THC content of 29.6% in resin seized in 2024, up from 15.9% in 2012, and attributes the increase to European hybrids sold to Moroccan farmers. On the street, this resin goes by names that suggest an origin, such as jaune mousseux, which is presented as Moroccan hashish and sold without any analysis.

A legal CBD resin contains at most 0.3% Δ⁹-THC, against close to 30% here, a gap of roughly 100 times. The traditional method and its CBD versions are described in our article on Moroccan hash and Rif sieving. For a resin sold in a shop, read its certificate of analysis and check the dominant cannabinoid, Δ⁹-THC below 0.30% and a batch number matching the product.