Morocco is one of the most cannabis rich countries in the world. It cultivates marijuana so extensively that it is causing soil erosion and destruction of long established forests, according to a UN report
 
As much as 1.5% of Morocco’s arable land is given over to weed, where the average family income derived from it is estimated at 1, .280 pounds, but that is now starting to change because in Britain people are growing their own more and more.

The illicit crop supplies most of the resin used by Europeans and the total intake is estimated to be around 7 billion a year. To do that, as much as a quarter of the agricultural land which is in the Rif mountain region is given over to growing pot, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.

In fact, the organization says that cannabis production threatens the environment of the Rif, where as many as 80,000 people depend on the crop, risking the social and economic structure, compromising any sustainable development there.

It all started in the 1970’s, when there was a huge explosion in cannabis use. It has gotten so bad that farmers rejected a 750,000-pound program to grow avocados instead of cannabis.

A survey was done on the harvest of cannabis, known as kif, and in the 134,000 hectares, a total harvest of 47,400 tonnes is harvested. It has been grown there since the 1500’s, but because of the boom in the demand for the drug, the growing area has now become an endangerment to land where edible crops could be grown, but won’t be, because of the money made from growing cannabis.

There are people out there who advocate the de-criminalization of marijuana, saying that it would stop the out of control boom in the cannabis business, which is the largest export drug in the world. Even though some countries have softened their laws, it has no effect on the crop at all; in fact, studies indicate that weed growing is increasingly on the rise, with no end in sight in the foreseeable future
.
It’s hard when the demand for the drug keeps increasing because there is a need to get a greater and greater high, and that is what fuels the cannabis industry all over the world.
It is ironic that the farmers who grow the plant are the lowest on the food chain, whose combined income is believed to be about 141 million pounds compared with the other end in Europe where the take from the farmers’ labors is an estimated 7 billion, making many enterprising Britons overnight millionaires.

It is difficult to say what to recommend, because if there is a world wide need for cannabis, or any other illicit drug or narcotic, as in, say Prohibition, that made organized crime overnight millionaires because of the Volstead Act, then there will always be a way to supply that need, no matter what people have to pay for it.