Hashish in the
Rif Mountains

//A Region Built on Cannabis

The Rif is a remote, mountainous region of northern Morocco spanning provinces like Chefchaouen, Al Hoceima, Taounate, and Ouezzane. Cannabis has been cultivated there for centuries, but industrial-scale production emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as European demand for hashish exploded. By the 1980s, the Rif had become the world\u2019s single largest cannabis resin producer. Moroccan authorities, recognizing the absence of viable alternatives, have historically tolerated cultivation in the Rif despite a formal legal prohibition. Hashish cultivation and trade generate an estimated 10 billion euros per year globally, of which only a tiny fraction reaches the farmers themselves.

In 2021, Morocco legalized cannabis cultivation for medical and industrial use, creating a regulatory framework intended to pull farmers out of the illegal market. Implementation has been gradual and the illegal export market remains dominant. For the 80,000+ farming families who depend on cannabis income, the transition to legal production is both an opportunity and a risk: legal yields and prices so far fall short of what illegal markets pay.

//From Farm to Europe

The Rif-to-Europe supply chain has remained structurally similar for decades. Harvested cannabis is processed locally into hashish - traditional sieving yields lower-grade product; modern ice-water or dry-sieve methods yield the premium \"polm\" and \"caramelo\" grades. Brokers based in towns like Ketama and Bab Berred collect pressed hashish from farmers. From there, trafficking organizations move product overland to the Mediterranean coast near Tangier, Tetouan, and Nador. Crossings to Spain use speedboats (\"narco-lanchas\"), hidden compartments in trucks on ferries, or occasionally inflatable boats launched from remote coves.

Spanish coastal towns like Algeciras, Tarifa, and La L\u00ednea de la Concepci\u00f3n have long served as the European entry point. Networks based in these towns distribute hashish northward into France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and beyond. The Dutch-Moroccan networks that later became the Mocro Maffia initially built their operations on this trade, bringing Rif hashish into Dutch coffee shops and European street markets. By the 1990s, hashish profits had funded the financial and logistical infrastructure that would soon be repurposed for cocaine.

//The Transition from Hashish to Cocaine

In the early 2000s, established Moroccan-Dutch networks began transitioning from hashish to cocaine. The economic logic was overwhelming: per kilogram, cocaine returned eight to fifteen times the profit of hashish, while requiring similar logistical infrastructure. Dutch-Moroccan operators already possessed the import channels through Rotterdam and Antwerp and the distribution networks across Western Europe. Adding cocaine simply meant connecting existing pipelines to South American sources. The Mocro Maffia of the 2010s, dominated by figures like Ridouan Taghi, emerged from this transition.

Hashish remained - and remains - a major product. Spanish authorities seized 674 tonnes of hashish in 2022, most of it of Moroccan origin. But hashish has been eclipsed in revenue and violence by cocaine. The older generation of hashish traders, often called the \"first generation\" in Moroccan-Dutch crime, was generally lower-profile and less violent than the cocaine-era successors. The shift to cocaine also shifted the criminal culture: higher profits, tighter timelines, more international reach, and eventually the wave of assassinations that defined the Taghi era.

//The Farmers\u2019 Reality

For farming families in the Rif, cannabis cultivation is often not a criminal choice but an economic necessity. The region has historically lacked the infrastructure, water resources, and market access to sustain alternative agriculture at scale. Average farm income from cannabis ranges from 2,000 to 5,000 euros per year - a level that keeps families above subsistence but nowhere near the profit margins enjoyed by brokers and traffickers. The disproportion between farmer income and retail price in Europe (where a gram of hashish costs 6 to 10 euros) illustrates how little of the trade\u2019s value reaches its origin.

Morocco\u2019s 2021 cannabis reform intends to formalize production for legal markets, with a national agency (ANRAC) licensing farmers and regulating output. As of 2024, thousands of farmers had joined licensed cooperatives, though most cultivation remains informal. Whether legalization ultimately reduces the illegal export trade depends on factors that include European consumer preferences, price competition, and the persistence of established trafficking networks.

//The Rif Today

The Rif of 2025 is a region transformed. The Hirak Rif protests of 2016 to 2017 exposed deep frustrations over underdevelopment and political marginalization. Legalization has opened a cautious new chapter. Criminal networks have diversified - some moved into cocaine via Moroccan-Dutch channels, others focus on people smuggling across the Strait of Gibraltar. Hashish cultivation continues on roughly the same scale. The Rif remains a region whose economy, politics, and global significance cannot be understood without the hashish trade that has sustained it for three generations.