Potent logo

Moroccan Hash Culture

In Moroccan hash culture, smoking and producing the product is deeply embedded in daily life.

By Johnny HashPublished 8 years ago 6 min read
Like

In Morocco it's possible to see the Atlantic and the Mediterranean at the same time, even if you haven't sampled the local hash. There are marijuana and hashish smokers in every segment of society. Among the Muslims, for whom alcoholic beverages are forbidden by Islamic law, kings, beggars, and everyone in between, hash is a nice way to end the day. It is part of the fabric of many of these cultures. Hashish or hash, sometimes referred to as kif in northeast areas of Africa like Morocco, is the extract of compressed trichomes of cannabis know as kief. Kief has a much higher concentration of the psychoactive cannabinoid THC. Processing kief is one of the steps in producing hash, and it involves heating through multiple cycles.

Hash smoking in Morocco, although officially illegal, is a standard and popular part of this country's public and private life. Cannabis in Morocco has always primarily been cultivated in the northeast Rif Mountains. Within the exclusive context of local festivals, entire families often partake in majoun, the candied preparation of the hash plant. In the city and countryside, the influence of hash smoking permeates the pace of everyday existence.

The Moroccan short story writer Mohammed Mrabet affects the ambience of a contemporary community of cannabis users in a tale of a man who is sent to the market for groceries by his wife. Having been interrupted by this request while preparing his daily supply of hash, the gentleman takes care and time to finish his work properly, conferring a sense of priority. He then smokes two pipes before leaving the house. Once among the stalls of the marketplace, buying the bread and vegetables for his lunch, he finds it quite natural to sit with the merchants while “talking and smoking and sipping the tea.” Finally he buys a kilo of swordfish and goes homes, “his head singing with the hash he had smoked.”

This photographic portfolio is extracted from a monograph of hash and hash smoking. The following vignettes are offered for the people pictured here, with the hope that the hash is still “singing in their heads:”

Marrakech, February 1977

A man from Marrakech operates an open-air restaurant on the large square in the center of the city. All day long, he and his family prepare the food. As the sun sets, he takes the food in buckets, pans, and tins to the square.

The square, known as the Djemma el Fna, is the site of a perpetual circus which assembles daily. This circus is composed of musicians and story-tellers, acrobats and snake charmers, herbalists, letter writers, animal acts, and court drummers. On the edge of the square and the periphery of this circus, the restaurant owner assembles his small tent and organizes his warm meals on braziers of glowing coals. Periodically toking on his hash pipe, he serves plates of fried fish, soups, steamed artichokes, and beans late into the night.

Bazaar Businessmen

Marrakech, February 1977

In the rug bazaar of Marrakech, this businessman buys woven goods directly from the artisans who produce them, as well as from a horde of middlemen. He sells the stock he acquires to still further middlemen, as well as to Moroccan shoppers and the tourists who come to this large city.

In front of his stall, the sellers shout out their prices and lay merchandise down for his perusal. The businessman fingers the goods, testing the purity of the wool. Perhaps he will find some flaw. Certainly he will offer some criticism and a lower price. The seller will counter with another price of his own, and the bidding proceeds rapidly and meticulously—and with the sharing of a pipe of hash.

The city of Fez is famous for its mosques, universities, and artisans. Among the community of craftsmen residing there I have observed and met many hash smokers. The medina of the old city houses a variety of extensive markets, or souks, which specialize in particular crafts. This metal worker and his son manufacture and sell tea trays in a section of the town that is completely given over to this type of work.

In Western countries, cannabis prohibitionists would lead their governments to believe that the legalization of marijuana and hashish would give rise to national epidemics of lethargy. The actual way in which hash is used by the Moroccans would dispel this argument.

Fez, February 1975

This workman and many others have told me that they often punctuate the tasks of their workday with pipes of well-cleaned and well-cut hash. The effect of hash is apparently suited to a life that combines “being-on-the-job” with getting high.

I met Bashir in the early morning at the oasis of Erfoud, where the gravel desert of central Morocco begins to give way to the sand of the Sahara. Bashir came down the road out of a thick palm grove carrying a single work glove, a flashlight, and a hash pipe.

He walked through a grid of tunneled streets inside the kasbah, and he explained the system of irrigation that the people who live in the walled city have devised to ensure an equal distribution of water. He said that on this day his water allowance came at sunrise, and so he had walked to his garden in the darkness. After a tour of the interior of the kasbah, one climbs steep stairs to an ancient roof above the gates of the city to sit in the warmth of the rising sun and trade pipes of hash.

Mid-afternoon in regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea is a time for an extended lunch and rest. Between assignments for the Tangier Power Company, this electrician stops at his favorite tea house, where he will sip a glass of the sweet mint brew with friends, smoke hash, and perhaps have a bowl of soup before returning to the job.

It is possible that as much as 50 percent of all the hash consumed in Morocco is smoked in the tea houses and cafes that are found in every city and village. The electrician told me that after his work day and dinner with his family, he often returns to this cafe to drink tea and share a few more pipes with his friends. (Tangier, October 1974)

Smoking Sahara

(Erfoud, February 1977)

A professional musician who has toured the entire country migrated south several years ago. Originally a native of Fez, he settled at the oasis of Erfoud, where he established a shop that manufactures and repairs musical instruments. Sometimes he still plays in public performances.

Having come from the north of Morocco and those regions close to the source of the hash harvests, this musician is especially sensitive to the scarcity of good smoke here on the edge of the Sahara. With a certain irony, he stated emphatically between a barrage of pipes: “There is no hash in Erfoud.”

A man smoking hash near Bab Jloud. He had occupied this particular spot by the gate for over thirty years. He pointed to a few burros grazing on a hill along the wall, and said that these animals were his and that he rents them to people who have merchandise to deliver or to remove from the streets of the Fez medina. These streets are, of course, too steep and narrow for trucks or cars. This man is engaged in the business of renting beasts of burden, and this spot by the wall is his office. The boy, whose routine it is to deliver lunch to this man, arrived with half a loaf of bread and a bowl of soup.

Keeping Up with Tradition

Morocco in the 21st century has not changed much. Smoking hash is illegal but remains commonplace among the citizens. The streets bustle with locals trying to sell their hash to each other and tourists. Small cafes are still popular spots for playing cards, drinking tea, and enjoying the culture of fine kif. It would seem that the future of the culture is written in the history of Moroccan hash.

politicshumanity
Like

About the Creator

Johnny Hash

Born in Kingsland, Arkansas. Spent way too much time watching TV. Daily toker. Still in Kingsland, Arkansas.

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.