1. 551198 - MICHELE RENSO - MA Social-Anthropology of Development – 20
th
April 2015 – Wordcount: 9450
Friction on the Rif: an Anthropology of the Illicit Development of Hash-
Trade in the Northern Region of Morocco.

2. 1
I have read and understood regulation 17.9 (Regulations for Students of SOAS) concerning
plagiarism. I undertake that all material presented for examination is my own work and has not been
written for me, in whole or in part, by any other person(s). I also undertake that any quotation or
paraphrase from the published or unpublished work of another person has been duly acknowledged
in the work which I present for examination.
I give permission for a copy of my dissertation to be held at the School’s discretion, following final
examination, to be made available for reference.
Signed…………………………… (student)
Date………………………..
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am profoundly grate to my mum and dad, who made this possible, as well as to my professor, David whose
comprehensiveness and sensibility equal his knowledge. I own a BIG thank you to my friend Michele, without whose
readings, suggestion and much more, I would have never have managed to write this. And especially Candela who have
fed me and quite physically supported me throughout the whole process. And many more friends and advisors without
whom I would have not made it.
CONTENT:
1 – INTRODUCTION
2 – ANTHROPOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENT: theoretical framework and methodology
3 – PROSPERITY: presentation of data and argument
4 – KNOWLEDGE: presentation of data and argument
5 – CONCLUSION ON FREEDOM argument and conclusion

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INTRODUCTION
This essay is inserted in the interstitial place of two profound undergoing changes.
The first it is represented by a globally changing attitudes towards illicit drugs and
the decline of drugs-criminalization, and indeed the mobilization of certain national
governments, as well as nongovernmental associations, calling for a reform of
international drug policy. Such mobilization has spurred the UN to anticipate it
convention to 2016 rather than 2019*
. Julia Buxton (2015) explains that in realizing
the ‘vicious cycle’ between drugs economies and underdevelopment the UNODC
have promoted the implementation of Alternative Development projects as well as
UN and UNODC representatives have insisted on a more tight partnership between
drug-control and development institutions (4).
The second profound change is, within the realm of social sciences, the end of a
certain reciprocal depreciation between anthropology and development. That is,
within the discipline, the revaluation of the field of socio-economical change as a
‘pathway’ towards the exploration of ‘complex set of local, national, and cross
cultural social interactions’ (Mosse 2006, 1). And the proposal of the ethnographic
practice as the key heuristic technique with which to bring ‘reflexive’ wisdom to
policy and development agents (Ibid.).
Thus, for those who take part in such a conversion within the anthropological
discipline, will soon find new challenges in exploring the socio-economical
*
Information found at International Drug Policy Global Consortium’s internet site at: http://idpc.net/policy-
advocacy/the-un-general-assembly-special-session-on-drugs-ungass-2016.

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development brought by illicit economies, such as the one involving illegal
psychotropics. However to analyse the theme of drugs through the lenses of
anthropology is not such an easy task since within the discipline there has been a
general lack of enquiry over the issue.
According to Hunt & Barkers’ (2001) review, this is both caused by a
compartmentalization of the research of alcohol and drugs as separate subjects, as
well as each drug is often considered separately; such compartmentalization would
prevents interchange of ideas, yet more significantly it denotes an uncritical
acceptance of ‘foreign frameworks’ from other disciplines such as bio-medicine,
psychology and pharmacology. In accepting the dichotomous categorization of
ingested substances into legal versus illegal, in refusing to examine the alcohol or
illegal drugs within a wider more holistic model, anthropologists have allowed the
focus of their research to be determined by dominant societal views about mood-
altering substances (Hunt & Barker 2011, 184).
In particular, cannabis is amongst those substances which have received less
attention, especially since the 70s and early 80’s, while its use has increased
exponentially in the last decades (Marshall et all 2001, 157). If few detailed
ethnographies exist on substance users, they seldom focus on Western societies, and
usually stir away from considering the wide political and economical frame by
focusing principally on users, mostly the more sensational users, those who are
perceived as more problematic and socially isolated, with little focus on more

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ordinarily drug users such as cannabis smokers (Hunt & Barker 2011, 172-173).
However despite such a lack of engagement in anthropological research on drugs, it
is possible, through the application of already existent anthropological framework to
appreciate ‘psychoactive substances’ [as] ‘a rich analytical category for the study of
historical and cultural processes’ (Goodman & Lovejoy 2007, 255).
The fact is that the use of drugs is often coupled with subversive or disadvantaged
people within society, gives a generally negative connotation to the term (Sherratt
2007, 1). That is also reflected at the intersection between underdevelopment and
drugs in which the ‘truisms surrounding drugs’ often couples these with laziness,
‘unproductive leisure and social disruption’ (here referring at chat and cannabis in
particular), thus considering illicit psychotropics as necessarily negative to socio-
economical development (Carrier and Klantschnig 2012, 75-76). Carrier and
Klantschnig (2012) argues how ‘a dose of anthropological perspective’ would widen
such given view on drugs, so that it would become possible to consider some drug-
crops as ‘playing a positive role in rural livelihoods’ (76-77).
The Northern mountain region of Morocco, very close to European market insatiable
demand for cannabis products, is home to one of the biggest production areas of
cannabis and hashish, apparently ‘nearly half of the world hashish supply’ (about
42%) (Chouvy 2005a, 32). According to UNODC World Drug Report (2013), even
though domestic cannabis production in Europe is on the rise, and demand for
Moroccan hashish decreasing, northern Morocco remains one of the world biggest

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growers of cannabis and producers of hashish, rivalling with Afghanistan (18). Such
cannabis production area is not new, Moroccans have enjoyed the recreational use of
cannabis for centuries, however according to UNODC 2003Morocco Cannabis
Survey, detailed information about such activities were often disputed and on
occasion controversial matter; that is up to the aforementioned 2003-survey (6).
The cultivation surface dedicated to cannabis has expanded considerably in the past
decades, to the point of resembling a ‘mono-crop’, involving excessive use of
fertilizers as well as increased deforestation in order support and expand cultivation
area at the expense of other crops as well as the environment, with the result of
hastening soil erosion (UNODC 2003, 7). There exists a relationship between the
cannabis production and the comparative condition of underdevelopment in the
region, nevertheless in some localities it is not ‘a mean of survival’ or directly linked
to wealth scarcity (Ibid.).
The mountain region of Northern Morocco, called the ‘Rif, lives in the paradox of
being one of the poorer region in the country, while being in sight of the European
southern shore; Its marginalization is reflected by a generalized residual subsistence
agriculture, the occurrence of contraband, a strong migration trend to Europe and the
considerable cultivation of cannabis (Moreno 1997, 43). Influenced by a history of
foreign conquerors and socio-political emargination, is a region remote from the
principal financial centres of the country characterized by poor communication
infrastructures, as well as a poorly diversified economy with a high unemployment

7. 6
and migration rate (Vidal 2012, 30). A region with a rich ‘ecological potential’, given
by its variety of landscapes which rise from the Mediterranean shore to its
inaccessible mountains yet marked by poor agricultural infrastructures and a
generally over sourced water supply (Ibid.). Moreover the insufficiency of public
management in its urban growth coupled with the lack of health and educational
services reveals the most severe shortcomings in public investment on the area (Ibid.
31).
This essay, in line with new trends in anthropology, intends to explore the
complexities of local and global relationships, as well as the intercultural influences,
which have fostered the illicit development of the cannabis economy in this specific
region. My argument follows two main theoretical lines: on the one hand it consider
the psychoactive substance of cannabis as a category for the analysis of cultural and
historical processes, as suggested by Goodman & Lovejoy (2007); while on the other
it aims to apply, onto this ‘historical and cultural’ terrain, the concept of ‘friction’, as
elaborated by Tsing (2005), in order to uncover interlinks and incongruences,
rivalries and collaborations that have fostered the evolution of such an illicit
economy, within the specifics of this region’s political-economy. As the premises the
outcomes will be twofold: Firstly the illicit economy in question will appear in all its
cross-cultural and local-global characteristics; and secondly in the light of a general
lack of ethnographical research this essay intends to propose the need for further
ethnographical enquiry in this field with the aim of informing and guiding future
international policy toward more fruitful policies for the people of the Riffian region.

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The following text is divided in four chapters. The first (Anthropology and
Development) intends to insert this work within a more precise theoretical framework
and methodology which structure the argument. The second chapter (Prosperity) will
describe the development of frictions that spurred the proliferation of the illicit
cannabis economy of the Moroccan region of the Rif. The Third (Knowledge) will
further focus on the ecological, technological and socio-cultural ramification of such
frictions. And the fourth (Concluding on Freedom) and concluding chapter will link
new possibilities for ‘freedom’ in the region to new collaborations between locals,
anthropologists and global, as well as national policy makers.
DEVELOPMENT AND ANTHROPOLOGY
In order to understand what is meant by ‘illicit development’ a definition of
‘development’ is indeed needed. However, as demonstrated by many, the concept
itself is hard to pin down.
‘Development defies definition [...] because of the difficulty of making the intent to
develop consistent with immanent development’ (Cowen & Shenton 1996, 438).
Michael Cowen and Robert Shenton (1996) in their book ‘Doctrines of Development’
trace the history of ‘development’, both as a concept and as a practice. In their work
Cowen and Shenton criticize a number of development ‘textbooks’ as failing to link
the idea of development to its original source, that is, the cultural and historical

9. 8
context of industrializing Europe in the early 19th
century (Ibid: 5). Such a
‘shallowness in development history’ has the consequence of aligning the concept of
‘development’ with the one of ‘progress’ (Cowen & Shenton 1995, 29). In the
nineteen century in fact the concept of progress was perceived as a stage of positive
improvement following a stage of destruction and decay (Ibid: 30); while in its
origins the idea of ‘development’ ‘emerged in the nineteen century as a counterpoint
to ‘progress’, that is: it ‘emerged to ameliorate the perceived chaos caused by
progress’ (Ibid: 29).
By forgetting the history and conflating both concepts together as it is often the case
nowadays, ‘development’ becomes both an ‘immanent process’ (such as the
‘objective’ progress of capitalism) and an ‘intentional practice’ (such as the choice to
pursue ‘participative’ or ‘sustainable’ development as different from ‘conventional’)
(Cowen & Shenton 1995, 28). Thus unclear as a concept, it is often said that
‘development means different things to different people’, and yet a globally reaching
business have grown around and upon such a concept (Ibid: 27).
‘Development’ therefore loses its meaning and become, as Gilbert Rist (2007) has
labelled it a ‘buzzword’ which ‘actual meaning is still elusive, since it depends on
where and by whom it is used’; both a ‘part of the ordinary buzz or hubbub to be
heard in countless meetings’, and ‘widely used as a hard drug, addiction to which
[...] may stimulate the blissful feelings that typify artificial paradises’ (485).

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So rather than asking what development is, it might be more appropriate to ask ‘what
is intended by development?’; and therefore ‘[w]ho decides what development should
be’ (Axelby & Crewe 2013, 4). Richard Axelby and Emma Crewe (2013) offer a
summary of the different theoretical basis by which agents and theorists alike have
attempted to frame the ‘development industry’, which they label as: ‘Easy,
Modernity, Control, Empowerment, Discourse’ and ‘Beyond Discourse’ (4-15).
As the basis for the world wide effort to contrast ‘poverty, ignorance and disease’,
Axelby and Crewe identify the famous (1949) U.S. president Truman’s speech
(Ibid.)†
. Truman’s speech conveyed the idea of a world divided in two parts: the
prosperous, industrialized and therefore developed one as separate from the
underdeveloped one, who suffered the consequences of poverty and lacked the means
for improvement (Ibid: 5). The solution was ‘EASY’: by exporting technology,
knowledge and funds from the develop world to the underdeveloped one it would be
also possible to export its prosperity (Ibid.).
Such a divide, was not only geographical but also chronological, in the sense that the
developing world was conceived as ‘backwards’, or as not having yet reached the
‘evolutionary’ stage of ‘MODERNITY’ (Ibid: 6). Therefore in order to bridge such
difference, developing nations should be encouraged to follow an evolutionary route
similar to the one which had brought prosperity to those nations which were
considered developed, namely the U.S. and the industrialized ‘West’ (Ibid.).
†
Axelby and Crew (2013) do recognise Cowen and Shenton’s (1996) work and their critique, however here we are
moving onto considering the industry of development and how the concept is interpreted by who is involved into these
practices. The spring of such globally reaching industry is indeed Truman’s speech.

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Yet, as prosperity delayed in materializing during the 50s and 60s, critique grew
during the following 60s and 70s: development was thus conceptualized as a method
of ‘CONTROL’(Ibid: 9). In the name of development powerful institutions would ‘be
able to impose their interest, values and beliefs onto the people of the developing
world’; ‘a colonialism by other means’; which often entailed a male-dominant
perspective and the western dichotomy between nature and culture consequently
criticized by feminists and environmentalist perspectives (Ibid.). As a matter of fact,
especially in the context of the Cold War‡
, development projects would also be
scrutinized and planned strategically, that is in response to ‘security’ criteria and not
just socio-economical ones (Ibid.).
Such critiques would perceive the design of development practices as ‘top-down’
(from the developed top, down to the underdeveloped); responses (here exemplified
by the work of Robert Chambers on PRA: participatory rural appraisal) had been
therefore to ideate an inverted ‘bottom-up’ design for projects directed at the
‘EMPOWERMENT’ of the developing people, where the ‘participation’ of the locals
is seen as essential. (Ibid: 10).
However anthropologists, grounded to local perspectives by the practice of
ethnography, have had an advantaged position in perceiving the ‘friction’, that is the
incongruence and inapplicability, of such ‘universalities’ (Tsing 2005 Friction) or
‘travelling rationalities’ (Mosse 2011, 5). Such ‘global’ ideas, included those on
‡
A trend which, in some contexts, is still present nowadays (Ibid: 9-10).

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‘development’ and ‘prosperity’, which are expected to have predictable outcomes
wherever they might be applied, are in fact in visible contrast with anthropology’s
‘cultural relativism’, which could also be defined as ‘methodological populism’(De
Sardan, 2005, 9). Between anthropology and development there thus existed a long
period of ‘mutual marginalization’ (Lewis & Mosse 2006, 1).
From an ethnographical perspective there is no ‘EASY’ transfer of knowledge and
technology, nor a universal route to ‘MODERNITY’ (Axelby & Crewe 2013, 5-8).
Uncertainties have arisen on how, in the absence of political and military colonial
organizations, the developed ‘West’ would be able to keep their ‘CONTROL’ onto
the underdeveloped ‘Rest’; while critiques had rained on how ‘EMPOWERING’
participation really is, especially when it entails the locals’ inclusion into the wider
free-market while masking the inequalities such inclusion requires (Ibid.).
Lewis and Mosse (2006) have described three ways in which anthropologist have
‘engaged’ with development: ‘instrumental, populist, and deconstructivist’ (2).
Anthropologists employed as experts in local contexts, have been ‘instrumentally’
turned into sources of ‘generalizable knowledge’ by the logics of development
institutions and practices (Ibid: 3). Or alternatively anthropologists have
‘populistically’ yet ‘ideologically’ praised local wisdom in order to degrade scientific
knowledge and ‘top-down technological transfer’ (Ibid.).
A third mode of engagement and an important theoretical basis by which
development has been understood, springs from the work of the famous French

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philosopher Michael Foucault and especially from his concept of ‘Governamentality’:
that is development as ‘DISCOURSE’ (Lewis & Mosse 2006, 4; Axelby and Crewe
2013, 12).
‘—Foucault’s work on the dynamics of discourse and power in the representation of
social reality, in particular, has been instrumental in unveiling the mechanism by
which a certain order of discourse produces permissible mode of being and thinking
while disqualifying, and even making others impossible’ (Escobar 1995, 5).
Arturo Escobar (1995), and James Ferguson (1990), offer two amongst the most
influential example of development discourse deconstruction. Ferguson (1990) offer
an ethnographical account of how, rural development programs in Lesotho, by
depicting problems of scarcity as well as its solutions in ‘technical’ terms, imposed
onto the local ‘powerless’ the consideration of such problems out of their political
context, whilst at the same time ‘depoliticizing’ or ‘normalizing’ the expansion state
bureaucracy (256). While Escobar (1995), by seeking to map the ‘mechanisms for,
and the consequences of, the construction of the Third world in/through
representation’ through a focus on ‘domination’, ends up conceiving ‘development’
as ‘a regime of government over the Third World that ensure a certain control over
it’ (9-10).
The Foucauldian discourse has thus offered to anthropology, the tools for the
deconstruction and analysis of power relations as these are articulated through a
system of representation, yet some anthropologists have made the effort of ‘MOVING

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BEYOND DISCOURSE’ (Axelby & Crewe 2013, 15). Lewis and Mosse (2006) and
Olivier de Sardan (1995), amongst others, have highlighted how such deconstructive
view is as ‘ideological’ as the ‘populist’ approach. In depicting an evil image of the
development effort, such perspective has the effect of masking, behind the image of a
cohesive ‘machine’, all those inconsistencies, disagreements and doubts which
otherwise characterize development (Lewis and Mosse 2006, 4/Olivier de Sardan
1995, 5).
Therefore ‘[t]he development industry is neither a simple ‘aid chain’ (as for the
‘Easy’ perspective) nor a machine of domination (as for the deconstructive
approach)’ (Axelby & Crewe 2013, 16). By dismissing such a ‘bi-polarism’, the work
of anthropologists as Lewis & Mosse (2006) and Olivier de Sardan (1995), have
opened new ways of considering the matter§
. Development become thus a ‘pathway’
towards the real complexities of socio-economical change, as well as anthropology
become the ‘theoretical and methodological’ basis on which to ‘empirically’
understand such a ‘complex set of local, national, and cross cultural social
interactions’ (Mosse 2006, 1-2). Thus:
‘Anthropology of development cannot be broken down into sub-disciplines, as the
‘transversality’ of its object is an essential ingredient of its comparative objective.
Anthropology of change and development is simultaneously a political
anthropology, a sociology of organization, an economic anthropology, a sociology

15. 14
of networks, an anthropology of conceptions and sense systems’ (Olivier de Sardan
1995, 33).
Carrier and Klantschnig (2012) report an existing lack of literature and research in
intersecting field of drugs and development (p 12 & 48). This essay, correspondingly
with the inclination of this group of anthropologist, and in response to given changing
trends within international drug-regulations; intends to propose that the
‘Anthropology of Development’ has to add, yet one more ‘Anthropology’, the one
about drugs, to its already long list of intersecting perspectives. Therefore in order to
demonstrate how to achieve this I**
intend to apply the strategy devised by Anna L.
Tsing in her book ‘Friction’ (2005).
By looking at the ‘friction’ of global dreams of prosperity, as these are applied in the
‘sticky material engagement’ of the situated dilemma of the cultural-history and
political-economy of northern Morocco; this essay intends to focus on the ‘complex
set of local, national, and cross cultural social interactions’ (Mosse 2006, 1-2) from
which the illicit development of the cannabis economy originates.
PROSPERITY
**
Following the wise advice of my professor, David Mosse.

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‘Prosperity is best understood through disparity. Prosperity is formed in friction.
Prosperity separates haves and have-nots within local conditions for enforcement of
property rights. These local conditions shape market economies, whose universals
cannot transcend politically managed question of access.’ (Tsing 2005, 21-22). This
chapter intends to analyse the ‘friction’ between ‘universal dreams’ of prosperity and
the field of drug production in the historical, cultural and socio-political context of
Northern Morocco ‘frontier’ region: the Rif. Here, the possibility to prosper through
drug trades is to be found at the intersection between local histories of deprivation,
globally circulated ideas of drug consumption and controversial national politics.
The Rif: a frontier zone of dissidence.
Geographically the zone referred to as the Rif, includes the whole mountain range
which spans from Tangier, on the Atlantic coast all the way to the Spanish enclave of
Melilla (Hart 2000, 106). The area is linguistically divided between the Jbala Arabic-
speakers tribes, roughly settled west of the city of Tarquist, and Tamazight and
Tharifith speaking Berber tribes living in the East (Hart 2000, 106). There are, or
were, a number of cultural differences between the Arab-speaking Jbala and the
Berbers. In particular Jbala tribes’ leaders enjoyed a greater concentration of power
than Berber’s leader, while Arab-speakers in general considered themselves
somewhat superior to Berbers (Hart 2000, 107-8). However, beside the division in
language and tribal organization, which according to Hart still play a part in
nowadays Morocco, the history of the Rif before, during and after colonialism have

17. 16
tended to unite it in a certain ‘regionalism’ in opposition to the central national
identity (Hart 2000, 21).
In Morocco, previously to the 1912 Spanish and French protectorate, the political and
the spiritual power was concentrated in the hands of a Sultan (today a king), thought
to descend directly from the Prophet Muhammad. He was followed by his court of
advisors and ministers as well as by his army that also executed the task of collecting
taxes (Hart 2000, 9). Taxes, however, where only collected in urban centres and
immediately surrounding territories, or areas of ‘government control’ which were
called ‘bilad al-makhzan’, and were concentrated on the Atlantic coast and
neighbouring plain regions (Ibid.). The rest of the territory, mostly desert and
mountains, was inhabited by tribes which would recognise the sultan as their
religious leader but not as their political one and they did not pay taxes. These lands
were the ‘land of dissidence’ or ‘bilad al-siba’ (Ibid.). The ‘Rif’, which means both
‘cultivable land’ and ‘coast’ (Hart 2000, 106), being a mountainous region was never
included within the al-makhzan territory and therefore it did not use pay taxes to the
authorities (Hart 2000, 9). Hart also mentions that living in ‘bilad al-makhzan or
in al-siba’ could have been optional and people could decide freely, however this
view can be contested since sultans and kings have lead a number of military
expeditions in various parts of the bilad al-siba in order to ‘conquer’ them politically,
never successfully however (Ibid.).

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Ernest Gellner explains that Moroccans were socially organized in three concentric
circles, the central which exerted taxes, the middle which had taxes exerted and the
outer which did not accepted to pay any taxes (1969, 3). The social groups of the
outer circle which inhabited the siba had a certain political independence. Here
Gellner refers to the siba as a political condition of ‘institutionalized dissidence’ of
which its members were aware and voluntarily rejected the control of the central
circle, at least until the establishment of the ‘modern state’, that is with colonialism
and Moroccan independence (Gellner 1969, 2-3). In this respect James Scott notes
that ‘In the Maghreb, as in Zomia, the distinction between a zone of state rule and a
marginal, autonomous zone was geographical and ecological as well as political’
(2009, 30). He highlights the fact that the distinction is first and foremost a political
one, passage between one side or the other is determined by the voluntary acceptance
or refusal of determinate form of government and control, only as a consequence of
such choices then ‘ethnicity’ takes shape, when for instance considering Berbers
(Ibid.). And yet in the Rif region Berbers speaking Tamazight or Tharifith and Jbala
mountaineers speaking Arab all lived in the land of ‘institutional dissidence’, as to
confirm that tribe belonging to the ‘outer circle’ choose to do so rather than being
determined by ‘ethnicity’ or language.
Cannabis in the Rif: connections of leisure and control.
In regard to cannabis in Morocco, there is no agreement on when the plant was
introduced into area. Moreno (1997, 131) remind us that before the 7th
century AD on

19. 18
the Mediterranean littoral of Morocco had already landed a number of people which
certainly knew about cannabis such as Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks and
Romans. Yet after the Arab Invasion there exist a number of anecdotes and stories
which would confirm the use of cannabis as a psychotropic (Merzouki & Mesa 2002,
403). However Merzouki & Mesa (2002, 403) reports that by the 19th
century Kif was
widely used and grown throughout Morocco, so that the Sultan of the time, Moulay
Al-Hassan, emitted harsh legislation to counter it. For what concerns tobacco, it
appeared in Morocco centuries after cannabis yet it was not introduced by the
Europeans who spread it in most parts around the world. Merzouki & Mesa (2002,
404) describe that it was adopted, around the 16th
century, in relation to Sultan Saâdi
Al-Mansour 1591 military conquest of what it is today Sudan.
Nonetheless, it was with the Arrival of the colonial powers of France and Spain in
1906, even before the official protectorate in 1912, that the consumption and
production of kif assumed a different scale. The French company ‘Régie des Tabacs
et du Kif’ established a monopoly of tobacco and cannabis throughout 13 countries
including Morocco (Moreno 1997, 132). Such a monopoly continued until 1953,
when a decree forbidding the commerce of kif followed by another one, on 24th
April
1954, prohibiting the use (Merzouki & Mesa 2002, 403). Such company managed to
exist for so long because it could by-pass forming international regulation since it
was, as Chouvy puts it, ‘conveniently situated’ in the de-regulated international zone
of Tangier (2005a, 33).

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However, the mountain area of the Rif was controlled to a lesser extent than other
parts of the country and the production of kif continued regardless of the monopoly,
probably because it was traditionally understood as a ‘no tax zone’. Such production
was mainly for local consumption but it also represented a valid product of trade in
periods of economical crisis, including during the Rif War of the 1920s, and
throughout the years of the Rif Republic despite the famous leader Abdelkrim el
Hatabi forbid the use of kif as non Islamic (Moreno 1997, 132). Joseph reports that
some locals whom he had interviewed, old enough to have participated to the Spanish
Civil War, revealed to him that who enlisted in Franco’s army was paid in part with
kif (Joseph 1975, 191). Even after the Rif Republic, despite the 1954 decree
forbidding the use of cannabis, Mohammed V with the intention of pacifying
dissatisfaction in the region around Ketama verbally authorized the district to
continue in its cultivation, which denotes that the Moroccan government, despite
international cannabis prohibition always tacitly allowed the trade (Chouvy 2005a,
34).
It has thus been established that it was in fact the experience of the Spanish
protectorate, and in particular the influence played by the draft in the Colonial
Spanish Army, that fostered the passage from a prominently medicinal use, only
occasionally recreational, to an extended market of cannabis production and
consumption, both in Spain as in the Rif (Arana & Sánchez 2011, 164).

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Interestingly, the changing scale of kif production in the Rif cannot be fully
understood without taking into consideration shifts in global practices of
consumption. In this context, it is significant to consider how drugs and markets have
been intimately related throughout the history of Capitalism. Klein reports that the
term ‘drug’ derives from the old Dutch ‘droog’ and describes all of the dry goods
(such as coffee, cocoa, tea and tobacco) which Dutch traders were dealing around the
globe in the 17th
century (2008, 39). Such dry-goods were the ideal commodity, not
because they fulfilled any substantial need, medical or nutritional, but because they
gratify a pleasure of the senses, growing in the user a greater desire for more (Klein
2008, 39-40). That is drugs-commodities entail, for the trader, the aspiration of
growth.
If spices, the luxury commodity of the middle age, had driven commerce up and
down the silk route and then encouraged the discovery of the New World; once in the
Americas, explorers founded new more appealing exotic products which market
demand transformed into an economical engine for immense profit, structuring what
is now known as colonialism (Klein 2008, 91). As we learn from the work of E.P.
Thompson; right in this period the idea of managing time productively resulted in
‘the clear demarcation between ‘‘work’’ and ‘‘life’’’ (1967, 93), or between
production and consumption. By drawing merchants to an increasingly globalized
trade as well as drawing the culture of leisure toward an increasing consumption of
hedonistic pleasures, the trade of drugs have played, both materially and socially, an
important function in establishing global relationships of a capitalist nature (Klein

22. 21
2008, 91). In this view the work of Sidney Mintz which describe the social history of
sugar, a ‘drug food’, in modern history is an exemplar work which demonstrate how
consumer demand and ‘intraclass struggle for profit’ transform ‘exotic’ substances
into everyday needs (Mintz 1986, 186)
At the same time, changing patterns of consumption were accompanied by more and
more refined regulations concerning drug-trade. As drug-trade became integral to
support the important financial costs of imperial administration as well as the
economic support to ‘open new markets and to control ever wider areas’;
consequently drugs-trades assumed such political importance that conflicts took place
over the control of trade routes (Mills & Barton 2007, 1). In 18th
and 19th
century the
control of drug-trades had become a strategic geo-political asset. In particular, the use
of Indian labour by British Imperial officers throughout the Empire fostered the
spread of recreational use of cannabis (Mills 2007b, 178). Subsequently British
Imperial policies intended to control, reduce and later also profit from the trade of
this drug; new markets, distribution networks and production areas spurred (Ibid.). In
this way, if it is true that drug-trade was central to the functioning of empires,
‘Imperialism shaped the politics of drugs too’, (Mills & Barton 2007, 2).
The ‘cannabis issue’ became so preeminent that it was eventually included in the
1925 Geneva Convention. The reasons for this, in particular, are to be traced in the
political agenda of two single country governors. The governor of South Africa,
concerned by racial fears about the friendly relationship that cannabis trade could

23. 22
foster between Indian and African workers (by far more numerous than the European
elite), was the first to raised the issue that the use of the drug could hinder workers
labour, (Mills 2007b, 182). Yet more significantly for cannabis prohibition was the
involvement of the governor of Egypt in the 1925 Geneva Convention. If one the one
hand he might have been honestly willing to counter the use of hashish, which in
Egypt had a long history by that time; on the other ‘his enthusiasm for the subject
would have been bolstered by the knowledge that the issue was one that would
damage his country’s formal colonial masters’ the British (Mills 2003, 182-183).
Regulations were thus based on biased scientific research and carried out despite the
protest of British commissioners themselves, who on their part, were trying to defend
their Indian revenues from cannabis trade (Mills 2007a, 182).
Thus concerning cannabis in Morocco, as in many other parts of the world,
throughout this period there appear the creation of new market of production and
consumption, while at the same time, fostered by international ‘collaboration’, there
arise institutions ever more specialized in the control of psychoactive substances.
These policy-making institutions of control would then influence both the
relationship between Morocco and the Rif region as well as the relations between this
kingdom and Europe.
After 1956: nationalism, tourism, and the new drug economy.
If cannabis production and consumption had been previously organized on a national
scale by the ‘Régie des Tabacs et du Kif’, the government of Morocco abided to

24. 23
internationally defined laws of cannabis prohibition after independence in 1956
(Chouvy 2005a, 33). However unfruitful government policies and economical
emargination, including efforts for cannabis eradication, foster the sprout of protest
on the Rif in 1958, which are violently managed by the Moroccan regular army in
1959, even involving the use ‘napalm’ ammunitions by the air-force (Moreno 1997,
135). These protests however have the effect of persuading the government, concern
for the alarming state of poverty, to tolerate cannabis cultivation in certain areas of
the Rif (Ibid.). In doing so Moroccan authorities initiated a tendency which exists to
this day, and that allowed the cannabis economy to grown into the important entry of
foreign value for the country that is nowadays (Moreno 1997, 177). But it is also to a
smaller scale that such illicit status creates possibilities for abuse of authority, as in
Northern Morocco it is not unknown of individual policemen who abuse the powers
of their uniform in order to seize some hashish for then sell it for their own individual
profit (Moreno 1997, 175).
The reign of Hassan II (1961-1999) was also known as the ‘lead years’, as it was
characterized by harsh policies toward political dissidents and little respect for human
rights (Vidal 2012, 73). As one of the consequences of the 1958 Berbers on the Rif
were preferred targets of such harsh policies (Ibid.). Furthermore, the new
‘multicultural’ attitude of present king Mohammed VI, while recognising Berbers on
a ‘folkloristic’ level, does not balance the structural inequalities which prevent a fully
political inclusion of these (Ibid. 74). It will result that such National Moroccan

25. 24
policy of marginalization, and exception, toward the Rif created the conditions for the
trade to escalate into the consistent traffic of nowadays.
During the 60s the working perspectives were meagre, trade with neighbouring tribes
of artefacts was not very consistent (Moreno 1997, 138). It was only at the end of the
60s that foreigners from Western Europe begin to come to the area attracted by local
customs and tradition, included of course the Riffians indulgence with cannabis,
consequently this must have sparkled, in some of the local minds, ideas for better
business (Ibid.). Morocco formed one of the destinations along the ‘Hippies Hash
Trail’ and it was the demand posed by such ‘hippies’, together with the Rif
geographical closeness to the European market, that encouraged the growth of
today’s traffic (Chouvy 2005a, 34). It was in fact those travelled-hardened
‘Europeans’, some of whom may have previously been in hashish-producing
Lebanon, who introduced to the Riffians the technique to sieve hashish (Chouvy &
Asfsahi 2014, 418). As we will see more thoroughly in the next section, the encounter
with tourists and global consumers has simultaneously enhanced the economic scale
of kif production and the technological knowledge needed to compete in a global
market.
At the intersection between controversial national politics and new flows of travellers
and market connections, drug production in the Rif determined the way to prosperity.
In the case of the Rif, however, local histories of deprivation also fostered such
economic transformation. As Moreno explains, in the region of the Rif we can

26. 25
observe the transition from a subsistence agriculture, for auto-consumption (and
limited trade), to an export cash-crop agriculture in a monetized economy (1997, 130-
131). In the Rif, the cultivation of cannabis did not take the place of pre-existing
cash-crops which failed to provide revenue as the international market fluctuates, as it
happened in other countries of sub-Saharan Africa (Ibid.)††
. It was instead a response
to a crisis of the subsistence economy (Ibid.).Such crisis had caused the increase of
unemployment, already chronic because of the high population rate in the area; this
has resulted in strong emigration trends towards the urban centres and Europe as well
as the entrenchment and growth of an already existing informal economy in the fields
of cannabis production and contraband in general (Ibid.).
In such settings however the cannabis economy has brought several advantages as
well as disadvantages to the Rif. First of all it has created employment in an
overpopulated area where the other alternative would be emigration, Afsahi report
estimation of up to 800.000 individuals and 96.000 family engaged in the cannabis
economy in the rural area between 2003 and 2004 (Afsahi 2011, 47). So many turn to
the cannabis cultivation, especially youth, principally in order to increase their
earnings with example of internal migration to villages where the cannabis economy
offers employment (Ibid). Such revenue are then reinvest, in part for improving
housing condition and in part for improving their growing equipment, but also in
other legal activities, as the acquisition of cattle, which amortize the volatility of the
††
Carrier and Klantschnig (2012), offer other examples of how illegal-crops have been introduced within sub-Saharan
Africa, at times substituting previous cash-crop, such as in the case of chat substituting coffee in Somalia (62).

27. 26
cannabis market (Afsahi 2011, 48). Despite possible hardships of the weather and
lack of water sources, pressure from smugglers to keep prices low, market
fluctuations and eradication campaigns, with annual earnings of about 38,000 Dirham
per family (about 2,700 £ for 8-9 members) in 2005, farmers still find lucrative to
cultivate cannabis (Ibid.).
In the region of the Rif, one of the poorest of Morocco, it is without doubt that the
cannabis economy offers an alternative to emigration and poverty and yet such
business has its limitations and risks (Afsahi 2011, 51). Besides the evident
limitations given by possible seizures and controls of illegal substances and the
fluctuation of an ever evolving market the extent to which the mono-cropping of
cannabis has reached poses some serious ecological risks already aggravated by the
high population density of the area (Afsahi 2011, 49). Therefore droughts caused by
both the natural dry climate and an overuse of water for irrigation, as well as a
disproportionate use of fertilizers and gradual deforestation in order to make space
for new cannabis cultivations is increasingly eroding the soil (Afsahi 2011, 49-50).
Moreover the more cannabis is cultivated the less land is left to the cultivation of
traditional food-crops and the rearing of animals (usually goats), as a consequence
now most food must be imported, or even smuggled (Afsahi 2011, 50).
Concluding remarks.
In this chapter, I have presented how the prosperity of a drug economy has been
shaped through the ‘friction’ between certain ‘dreams of global consumerism’,

28. 27
imported via encounters with the ‘west’, and, to use Tsing’s term, a specified
‘situated dilemma’ represented by the limited possibilities within the political
economy of a frontier. A region where the possibility of a cannabis economy existed
in both the presence of a rural cannabis production and in urban and maritime
networks of trade. Such transformations, however, not only morph the economical
realm, yet alter the region’s knowledge about technology the environment and the
social structure itself.
KNOWLEDGE
The kif economy which has developed on the Rif is not merely explainable in
economic terms, in the formation of a market of production and consumption, but its
‘contingent connection’ ramifies beyond the economical. The emergence of a
globally connected field of local drug production has brought about profound social,
technological and environmental transformations.
From kif to hashish: technological and environmental transformations.
The traditional preparation smoked by men on the Rif, called ‘Kif’, is a mixture of
approximately 2/3 cannabis and 1/3 tobacco, which is smoked in long pipes called
‘sebsi’ (Merzouki & Mesa 2002, 404). The preparation is traditionally done by older
men, since they are considered to have more experience (Ibid.). Once the female

29. 28
cannabis plants are mature and dried, their branches are stripped of their leaves and
bracts which are then finely chopped with a knife. Interestingly the knife has to be
clean of the dark resin which sticks to the blade, since it is considered to be ‘toxic’
(Ibid.). Interestingly such resin is however the material of which hashish is made. The
remaining material is then sifted in a very finely (1mm thick) dust and added to the
tobacco (Ibid.). Tobacco is also a traditional cultivation on the Rif, and its leaves are
dried in the dark and then stored in bags, in order to preserve some degree of
humidity. Before being grinded in a similarly fashion to the cannabis, each leaf is
rubbed by hand in order ‘to give it hart’, as it is said (Ibid.). Tobacco is an important
component, as kif without it is considered ‘insipid’, lacking salt or taste (Ibid.).
Smoking kif traditionally follows a rather strict procedure and it is usually performed
by older men (Merzouki & Mesa 2002, 404 - 405). Once gathered together, black tea
with mint (Moorish tea) is served and the first smoker fills his sebsi with kif, lights it
and inhales one or two drags before passing his pipe to another who inhale the
remaining few drags and cleans the pipe which is returned to the owner (Ibid.). The
process is repeated for each participant, as to prove the quality of kif and sebsi, the tea
is also important as it lessen the harshness of smoking on the throat (Ibid.). Kif is by
far the preferred cannabis preparation, as men in the Rif also attach medical
properties to the use of kif, no medical properties is attached to hashish or resin
(Ibid.), which as indicated above, old men consider to be ‘toxic’.

30. 29
From a cultural perspective Roger Joseph, an ethno-botanist who conducted
fieldwork in the Rif in early 1970s, explains that if on the one hand the use of kif is
often considered immoral by educated urban elites familiar with Western views, and
there exist a certain degree of stigmatization on kif users who are considered ‘poor,
illiterate and backward’ (1975, 190). One the other hand kif users in the Rif consider
such urban elites as ‘bad Muslims’ since they accept a far more westernized style of
life including the use of alcoholics, which are explicitly banned in the Quran (Ibid.).
Another social characteristic of kif use on the Rif mountains is that, at least up to the
70s, kif smoking was much associated with adult and elderly men, that is to say with
the ‘older establishment’, rebellious youngster were more likely to drink alcohol than
to smoke kif, much in opposition to the West were the smoking of cannabis was
mostly associated with youth counter-cultures (Ibid.). Furthermore in a society
structured for relations between social groups and where the use of kif is not
perceived as profane as the use of alcohol, individual behaviour that does not
influence traditional social procedures it is not disapproved but only regarded as a
personal inclination (Ibid.).
Hashish, contrary to the kif preparation, is not traditional in Morocco, but was first
introduced by the encounter with Westerners. As noted by Chouvy, Morocco was the
first country of the ‘hippies hash trail’, which stretched from north Africa to India, it
have thus been western hippies, who in the 70s introduced the technique to extract
hashish in Morocco from Lebanon, where hashish was already known (2005a, 34).
From the three tribes around the Ketama valley which were allowed to maintained

31. 30
cannabis cultivation, the cultivation had expanded, already in the 60s, to twelve tribes
(Afsahi 2011, 40). Already at that time, the high population density in the area meant
a lack of water and land for the subsistence of the population, in such settings the
informal economy represented by cannabis smuggling and cultivation offered a
release valve (Ibid.). Since then a combination of the ever increasing European
demand, the Rif’s proximity to this lucrative market and the presence of conflict or
increasing anti-drug control policies in other cannabis producing countries (such as
Afghanistan, Lebanon, Syria and Turkey) have spurred hashish production to an
unprecedented level, from 25.000 hectares in the 80s to an estimation of 134.000
hectares in 2003 (Chouvy 2005a, 34).
If Kif was the most used cannabis smoking preparation in the Rif until the 1960s and
70s, since then the lucrative business of hashish have gradually decreased its use and
nowadays hash, or cannabis resin, is what is mostly produced (Chouvy 2005a, 34)
and which is now most in vogue smoking among nowadays younger generations
(Moreno 1997, 264). There exist different methods to extract the resin from the
cannabis plant, for example in India and Nepal plants are typically rubbed by hand in
the fields, the dark resin which sticks to the hands is then collected and cured
(Chouvy 2005a, 32). Yet in Morocco the method used is to pass the grinded plant
through a sieve, the same technique used in Lebanon, as sieving produce greater
quantities of hashish in much less time, is far more effective for exportation oriented
mass production (Chouvy 2005a, 32-33). Kif is rather bulky, and not as easy to
smuggle, while hashish is a paste which can be shaped and hidden much more easily,

32. 31
and if there exist different techniques to extract the resin from the cannabis plant,
‘threshing and sieving’ is the method most effective for producing great quantities of
hashish for export, as opposed to quality (Chouvy & Asfsahi 2014, 418).
Cosmopolitan youth and self-made men: social transformation in the cannabis
economy.
The passage from kif to hashish, described above in its technological and
environmental aspects, has also been interwoven with broader social transformations.
Paralleled by the emergence of peculiar dreams of prosperity, this passage has
fostered the development of a social structure more geared toward the global market.
Here, I will focus on examples of changes in social ties, inter-generational
relationships and socio-economic distinctions brought about by an evolving cannabis
economy.
Emancipation and new rivalries are the two faces of a monetized cannabis economy.
Youths are particularly attracted to this kind of activity, as Afsahi reports from her
interviews, since it enables them to earn far more than through more traditional crops
but also allow them to be more independent from traditions and family constraint
given by a patriarchal organization of society (Afsahi 2011, 49). Women as well,
despite the accumulation of task added by tending cannabis cultivation on top of their
usual cores have gained an unprecedented access to credit and increase their social
recognition (Ibid.). Yet, more importantly, the dedication to the cannabis economy is
transforming the social structure in the Rif: ‘[w]ith this new lifestyle, we are

33. 32
witnessing a loss of social and family ties, and solidarity’ as the acquisition of
commodities becomes the main concern, while competitiveness and individualism
now regulate relationships between neighbours and villages, at the cost of customary
law and subsistence agriculture (Afsahi 2011, 50). Which is not just a question of
food security but a loss of knowledge over traditional crop cultivation and handcraft,
since young men and women are progressively involved in cannabis cultivation have
ever less time to dedicate to other activities (Afsahi 2011, 50). This dramatically also
include education since the prospects offered by the cannabis business are far more
lucrative (Ibid.).
The employment of seasonal labour is gradually substituting the work of women, and
youngsters are increasingly diverted from school to the cannabis fields (Ibid.).
Ultimately conflicts are becoming more frequent since neighbours are now in
competition with each other and with the erosion of traditional relationships the
means for handle such quarrels are becoming limited; as a consequence competition
over cannabis fields are increasingly frequent and often exacerbated with denounce to
the authorities (Ibid.). The whole of the rural society in the Rif has thus profoundly
changed through the exposition to the global market.
Moreno (1997) describing an example a of a young hraifia, in a note at the bottom of
page 283 writes: ‘Jamal was wearing a Nike baseball-cap which he paid 1,500
dirham, a pair of Reebok trainers which he had bought in Tetuán for 1,300 dirham

34. 33
and an Adidas tracksuit for which he had spent 400 dirham. More than a young
Riffian fellah, he looked like a player of the American NBA‡‡
’ (my translation).
The world of drug traffic in the Rif is a context ‘in evolution’. As a consequence of
changing market conditions, the new generations have developed more effective
methods and strategies more adapted to the nowadays world (Moreno 1997, 286).
Youngsters are often better literate than older generations, have the benefit of
speaking more than one languages (including French, Spanish and English), they
travel more often and prefer to negotiate with Europeans, often distrusting local
traffickers when dealing hashish (Ibid. 284). Unlike their fathers, they now have the
economic means also to compete in a national struggle for prestige. Although still not
neatly integrated, Moreno categorizes those involved in the cannabis economy as a
‘new social class’, the ‘self-made man’ or ‘hraifia’, (Moreno 1997, 286). Those
individuals from humble rural origins, who previously might have worked as
shepherd, miner or daily worker, which became quickly rich through an involvement
in production or traffic of hashish and that now boast their newly gathered prosperity
in expensive cars, posh houses and parabolic TV antennas with which to follow their
cosmopolitan and urban dreams (Ibid.).
Although a market economy has never been alien to the Rif, the changing cannabis
trade has transformed the scale of knowledge, styles and ideas. During what Moreno
labels as the ‘golden age’(throughout the Middle-Age), the eastern Mediterranean
‡‡
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a north-American professional association for basketball players.

35. 34
was a ‘Saracen sea’ pullulating with maritime trade and making of Morocco a ‘land
of passage’ for commercial routes linking the east of the Arab world with its west as
well as southern Spain (Al-Andalus) and Europe with sub-Saharan Africa (Moreno
1997, 48-49). Thus traditional Riffian society has never been foreign to the idea of
the market, all the contrary. Riffians gathered in the ‘zoco’ (market place) on market
day and not only exchanged all sort of commodities, but took the chance for tying all
sort of social relations, especially among individuals from different tribes and
provinces (Moreno 1997, 266). The development of the cannabis trade, with its large
volume of currency, has rendered the market system in the region ‘more dynamic’,
giving it more importance, improving road communication and introducing new
commodities from the consumerist world of a ‘global trade’(Ibid.). This enlarged the
imagination of traditional Riffian to accommodate dreams of global consumerism and
the possibility for prosperity through trade rather than agricultural hard labour.
Concluding remarks.
This chapter intended to expose those ‘contingent connections’ which lies beyond the
Rif’s kif economy. Knowledge about technology, the environment and the social
structure of the Riffian society have morphed as the friction between distinct
aspiration of prosperity have adapted in this specific politico-economical context
creating new links between the local and global as well as new form of rivalry and
collaboration.

36. 35
Conclusions on FREEDOM.
This essay intends to adhere to a certain newly born tradition within the discipline of
anthropology, it intends to explore the intricacies of socio-economical development
as a ‘way into’ a better understanding of the ‘complex set of local, national, and
cross cultural social interactions’ (Mosse 2006, 1-2). The previous two chapters have
demonstrated how the political-economical phenomenon of the cannabis economy on
the Rif is not only determined by the mere lack of affluence which afflicts the region.
Yet how dreams of, and desires for, specific ideas of prosperity have influenced and
shaped practices and knowledge of the people of the Rif, in the fields of economics,
technology, environment and the social organization. Such illicit economy can thus
be seen as the outcome of the ‘friction’ of globally held ‘universal dreams’ of
prosperity onto the specific context of the frontier region of the Moroccan Rif, in the
historical, cultural, political and environmental peculiarities of its ‘material
engagement’.
Nevertheless as suggested by my ethnographical data: the Rif’s politico-economical
circumstance, the global market of cannabis as well as the international legislation
governing it, are all undergoing profound changes which will foster unforeseeable
consequences in this specific context. Such unpredictability reflects onto the
possibilities for pursuing dreams of prosperity in the Riffian context; onto the elusive
shifts by which the Riffians’ freedom swing back and forward.

37. 36
Global evolving trends, locally unpredictable shift.
Since the 60s, promoted by a series of countercultures movements, the recreational
consumption of cannabis, as well as other psychotropics, has steadily increased,
independently from governmental policies (Klein 2008, 111). But what characterizes
the recreational use of cannabis, unlike other drugs, have been the increasingly
detachment from such subcultures and its progressively introduction into the
mainstream, ‘holding on to vague pretentions to subversion and rebellion, while
remaining entirely conventional’ (Ibid.). The result is that nowadays cannabis
cultivation is going through a global revival, which is specific to cannabis, ‘from
Europe to Americas and Oceania, import substitution in the cannabis market has
been noticed in almost every developed country around the world’ (Potter et all 2011,
1-2). Being the most used illegal drug in the world, the demand for this substance is
very high and cutting across all social classes, additionally the presence of magazine
and internet site dedicated to cannabis and cannabis growing, not only help us to
understand the extent of such a shift in production, but it become ‘meaningful to talk
specifically of cannabis culture – a (sub-)culture centered on the drug or plant itself’
(Potter et all 2011, 4-5). In addition, bio-medical research proving the benefit of
cannabis medical and industrial uses, along with a general social acceptance as a
benign drug have brought many ‘to see the plant in an almost ideological light’
(Potter et all 2011, 6).

38. 37
Consequently cannabis, besides being a conventional drug, is increasingly legally
accepted around the world; the Netherland, as well as some states in the US had
applied less harsh penalties for cannabis recreational use already in the 70s, while
lately the proposition or application of reforms of the regulatory system have
occurred in progressively more countries in Europe, Oceania and in the Americas
(Bouchard et all 2011, 273). At the same time some other nations, such as Denmark
and the UK, still maintain a harsh approach on cannabis regulation, yet while most
pro-cannabis reforms stay within the boundaries drawn by international treaties,
debate over moving outside such restrictions is vividly open (Ibid.).
If such liberalisation trends continue to take place in Europe, the cannabis economy
of northern Morocco will undoubtedly be affected, as for now the trend is already in
place the EMCDDA 2014 European Drug Report confirm that within the past decade
herbal cannabis seizures produced in Europe exceeded seizures of hashish imported
from abroad (principally from Morocco) representing now about two third of the total
(EMCDDA 2014, 18). Although, data might be misleading since hashish typically
has to cross national borders and it is therefore more vulnerable to controls which
lead to think that herbal cannabis is seized less frequently than cannabis resin (Ibid.).
As it appears in the previous sections, from the local perspective such shifts are
reflected. As the Rif have responded to the increasing European demand, with an
increasing production, the friction of such interdependence have brought the Riffians
to a respective increasing reliance to such an illicit economy. Thus interweaving the

39. 38
kif economy with the regional social dynamics of youth and women emancipation,
cosmopolitan construction of identity and notions of individualistic freedom.
The cannabis economy having become so entrenched in the socio-cultural fabric of
Riffian society is not likely to disappear from one year to the next, yet its future
developments are not easily foreseeable. Under the pressure of the latest development
of the ‘global cannabis revival’, in the attempt of producing more market-competent
variety of hashish, the Riffian production area, is already undergoing a radical change
(Afsahi & Chouvy 2014, 420-421). Through the introduction of new, ‘more potent’
varieties of cannabis, as well as the adoption of new and more technologically
advanced techniques of growing cannabis and producing hashish, Afsahi (2015)
describes how Riffians, driven by the need to compete with the rapidly evolving
European market, continue to reveal unexpected ingenuity and competence in this
illicit market (328). Thus confirming the unexpectedness of possible future
developments.
Elusive freedom.
‘ Freedom is elusive’ (Tsing 2005, 245). This essay wants to promote freedom for the
Riffians, the freedom to pursue their dreams of prosperity, yet sustainable on a long-
term basis. But where is, how to grab, such freedom? How to construct and pursue
such dreams? How to fruitfully shape prosperity and progress?

40. 39
Carrier and Klantschnig (2012), note, and lament the lack of academic literature on
increasingly important topics as the intersection between development and illicit
economies (p 12 & 48). Recently however, through the work of anthropologists, such
as Lewis and Mosse (2006), Olivier de Sardan (1995), Goodman & Lovejoy (2007),
Carrier and Klantschnig (2012) as well as ethnographers such as Tsing (2005), it has
become possible to perceive the importance, as well as imagine a strategy of how to
overcome the obstacles, in order to pursue a more thoroughly research on drugs and
development. Through my work, through the example of the Riffian mountains
fragile frame, my hope is to emphasize the need for this kind of endeavour.
May such an anthropology foster a more politically engaged ethnographic practice,
more connected and collaborative with regional, national and global policy making
institutions. Capable of shaping international policy as well as reaching local culture,
in the pursuit of more fruitful policies, better collaborations between people and a
multiplying of the possibilities for the pursuits of dreams. Most especially, and
urgently, in contexts of deprivation, illegality and shadow such as the cannabis
economy of the Rif.
It may be not quite ‘freedom’ yet; it sounds like a dream, I know. And yet, is it not
from dreams that everything begins? May anthropologists never stop dreaming, I
know Riffians will not.

41. 40
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