I'm sitting in a big old mercedes, driving through the Rif mountains of Morrocco. this is where most of Europe's hashish is grown. The driver is a native of the area and has been involved in all stages of the cannabis industry since he was a boy. He points out fields he used to work and pathways leading down to the Mediterraean coast where smugglers load up fast speedboats for the short trip across to Spain.
The driver - let's just call him mohammed - is driving me to near the market town of Ketama to meet some friends who grow cannabis. We arrive late at night and nobody answers. We sleep in the car. Early in the morning the women awake and let us into the reception room, where we sleep for another coupla of hours.
While lying half asleep, I could hear a loud whacking noise going on quite close by. I thought it was a very loud tractor backfiring, but it kept going. After a delicious breakfast of eggs fried in olive oil and eaten with flat bread, I wandered outside.
The noise was two guys making cannabis resin.
This is how they do it:
They get a big steel bowl, maybe a metre wide at the top. They stretch a heavy black polyester fabric across the top of the bowl. Tight. Then they heap a load of cannabis plants, stalks and all, onto the fabric. The whole lot is covered in a heavy duty clear plastic bag, tied at the end.
Then they settle down on their stools, grab the sticks (metre long twig, finger thick with the ends bandaged with tape) and start to beat out a rhythm on the grass. They pound the whole pile quite hard, moving the point of impact of the stick around. When the grass has all either been pounded through the gauze or fallen off, they open the bag and take out the bowl. What's inside is first quality hashish. It's a crumbly pale brown colour and smells just delicious. Second quality hahshish is made by taking the leftovers of plant from the first pounding and pounding it again. The very best quality seems to be called zerozero or sputnik or other names. It's made by one or two gentle shakings of the plant in a plastic bag.
They make rhythms with the pounding and get a kick out of it. When they are not making hash they play proper drums too.
They are paid 100 dirhams - 10 euro - plus food, for a day's work. They will make about a kilo of hash per day.
They have a couple of hand operated 20 tonne hydraulic jacks which they use to press the resin into 100 or 250 gramme block, with the option to press a design into the resin.
I didn't get much information about the growing, except that the male plants are separated and burnt, and not used to make the resin. Fertiliser is widely used, and there are stacks of it outside the shops in the market towns of the Rif. The plants can grow to well over 2 metres. Most of the Rif is given over to growing cannabis - a dangerous monoculture. Harvest time is September/October, and prices are therefore lower than at other times.
Prices vary wildly. And Morrocco is well known for the rip-off. These guys quoted 10 dirhams/gramme (1 euro), but that is obviously far too much.
The area around Ketama can be quite freaky. it's the centre of the grass growing region. We stopped in a cafe in Ketama around midnight. Tense feeling in the air. the half dozen people there eyeing us. A few come over to chat and the only topic is cannabis and how we should buy some. Definitely a place to treat with caution.
The beesnees, as everyone calls it, isn't all that good for Morrocco. Steep hillsides heavily tilled, plastic sacks of fertiliser stacked high in the streets of the market towns. Very little contour planting and signs of erosion. Plastic and packets of OMO washing powder litter the streams. Mobile phone transmitters and electric pylons are scattered through the Rif, even on the peaks. Roads are cut to get pylons on the highest points. Loads of mobile phones, especially among people in the "beesnees". And the money makes people eager for the ripoff and the quick buck.
There is a quite a bit of forest in the Rif, but much of it is plantations of monoculture fir. I saw a bit of natural forest and it had a luxuriant growth of loads of different plants. The beautiful snow white ibis is a common bird amongst the cattle. A contrast to the mostly bare fields and hillsides awaiting plantation with the cash crop.
Transport from the hills to the coast for export is easily arranged. The police stick to the roads, where they man checkpoints and universally collect bribes to allow cannabis to be transported. One smuggler told me that the police on his route encouraged him to take bigger loads through - more payoffs for them. Off the roads, in the hills, paths are used to take the resin on foot or horseback to the coast without paying bribes. At the coast, the police checkpoints every couple of hundred yards will expect a payoff too. One has to be careful - if a smuggler bribes the local police checkpoint, but doesn't bribe the boss of the whole area also, if the chief finds out it will be trouble.
Plenty of people do go to jail for cannabis offences. If you don't bribe and you get caught, if you bribe one unit but another unit busts you or maybe just if someone is out to get you, you'll get busted anyway.
It must be strange job, being
a Morroccan policeman arresting people for possession of cannabis. Some
police checkpoints are surrounded by fields where cannabis is grown. The
policeman looks out of his hut. All he can see is sky, and a road between
fields of cannabis. A car moves along the road towards him. He stops the
car when it gets to the checkpoint. He searches it, finds cannabis and
arrests the driver. The driver is taken away to jail and the policeman
settles back on his seat in the hut and looks out his door. Once again,
all he can see is the sky, and a road between fields of cannabis.