War trashes Moroccan-Israeli hash trade
While most Arab governments seem to be generally, if quietly, rooting for Israel in its war against Hamas, their public has been less supportive.
Thousands of people have demonstrated against Israel in Morocco’s capital, Rabat, and against their country’s diplomatic ties with the Jewish state.
But the bigger blow to the Israeli public is coming from the Rif Mountain region of the country, a couple of hours drive north of Rabat.
That’s where illegal cannabis growers produce what is considered some of the world’s finest hash. Hash that they have stopped selling to their longstanding distributors in the Israeli underworld.
“We no longer sell hashish to Israelis,” a Moroccan dealer told Israel’s Channel 12 news last week.
The story was confirmed by an Israeli drug smuggler.
“The hashish dealers in Morocco are not willing to sell us more hashish, either directly or through intermediaries,” he told the newscast. “They decided that because of the war, they are boycotting us. Since the war, we have lost a lot of money. Tens of millions of shekels at least.”
However, in a bit of good news for Israel’s cannabis consumers, last month Israel’s Ministry of Health revised its regulations to allow physicians to prescribe cannabis to patients with a wider range of conditions. As of December, there were 137,940 authorized patients; that number is expected to double by 2027.
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