With 67 validated products, Morocco launches its first exports of medical cannabis
From the Rif to the laboratories, Morocco is accelerating its cannabic transformation. In the space of a year, the kingdom has gone from experimental licenses to the first official exports, while 67 by-products have already been given the green light for export. Between strict supervision, economic promise and the legacy of the Beldia, the supervised legalization of cannabis is taking a promising turn.
The great Beldia leap
In Morocco, the 2025 season marks a historic turning point. In the hills of the Rif, Beldia – the traditional variety, long hunted down and then tolerated – is now the official showcase of the legal canna-business. According to the Agence nationale de régulation des activités relatives au cannabis (ANRAC), in just one year, the area dedicated to this strain has more than tripled: 4,400 hectares versus 1,400 in 2024. Taounate, Chefchaouen and Al Hoceïma now boast 4,490 growers, federated into 250 cooperatives.
This controlled legalization has upset the balance. Where illegal cultivation fed a grey economy and cross-border networks, the government intends to replace it with a transparent, administratively-controlled circuit. With 3,800 new licenses to be distributed by 2025, and almost 3,000 renewals, Morocco is locking in its system, while at the same time demonstrating its ambition to transform the historic herb of the Rif into exportable green gold.
Prescription products and cosmetics
The other indicator of this shift can be seen in the shelves to come: 67 marketing authorizations have been issued by the Moroccan Agency for Medicines and Health Products. These include 26 cosmetics and 41 dietary supplements. Nothing reminiscent of the recreational joint – still prohibited – but a range that heralds the rise of a pharmaceutical and wellness sector.
Controls are multiplying to reassure partners and investors: 2,202 operations carried out in 2024, most of them linked to transport, but also inspections on cultivation, processing or export. A bureaucratic arsenal designed to prove that Moroccan legalization will not be taken lightly.
From the Rif to Australia
The international opening has already begun. The kingdom has shipped its first legal shipments to Australia and the Czech Republic, a first that marks Morocco’s determination to establish itself as a responsible player in the medical and industrial cannabis market. In a rapidly expanding global market, where Europe is still questioning its regulations, the gesture carries weight.
Behind the figures and the press releases, a delicate equation remains: transforming a culture secularly associated with marginality into a legal, profitable and respected industry. The cooperatives of the Rif, long stigmatized, are becoming the partners of a government that wants to combine tradition and modernity, exports and local development. It’s an economic and societal revolution that doesn’t say its name, but one that is reshaping Morocco’s relationship with cannabis. The second step, eagerly awaited by all farmers in the industry and many others, is the legalization of the green gold that is recreational cannabis.
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