Episode Transcript

Trevor:  Kirk, we're back.

Kirk:  Hey Trevor, how's it going?

Trevor:  Good. So we're talking from actually not that cold of January in Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada, the best place on the planet as we're just discussing off air. But we are going to go back in time to much warmer Morocco.

Kirk:  Yeah!

Trevor: Do I talk up a little bit where we were and then we'll get into the conversation with two interesting gentlemen.

Kirk:  Sure this is part of Michelle and I going to Spain and Morocco uh... August September a little bit of October.  We moved into Morocco from Spain, and we spent four and a half weeks in Morocco. The first three weeks I was on, quote unquote, a vacation with friends, so I had very little opportunity to do any Reefer Medness stuff. I was in the Rif area. I was in Chefchaouen, which is one of the one of the best places to go for hashish in Morocco. I was there, but I wasn't with people that participated, and I kind of removed myself from it. We were traveling through the highways, and I could see cannabis growing in the fields. I was their during harvest times. We made contacts with people while I was they, and we made arrangements to talk to people in the cannabis industry, and these two gentlemen are people that we arranged to talk to. I was in Marrakesh, you were in Winnipegosis.

Trevor: I was in Winnepegosis, so we'll throw out right now, apologies for the sound quality not being the best in Winnipegosis, they say it's going to improve shortly, but at the moment Winnipegosis internet is slow at best, so I was turning off the video and stuff to try to get the audio better, but it's between Marrakesh and Winnipegosis and I think We're in Rabat.

Kirk:  Were they in Rabat? I think they were in Casablanca, I think.

Trevor: You're right, I don't know that, but anyway, long round of circuitous thing, and I think Winnipegosis was the weak link. But anyway, so the audio quality isn't the best, but they still had a lot of interesting things to say.

Kirk:  Yeah, now real quick, why don't we just go right into the conversation and we hope, again like Trevor said, the quality is not great, so let's go into the conversation, we'll come out and we'll explain a little bit of what we know about Morocco.

Trevor: So just before we get into it, the two voices you're going to hear, it's going to start with Mehdi, he's a PR guy. And then the second voice we're going to hear is Dr. Rabi, you're all just a professor and heavily involved in getting medical cannabis up and going in Morocco.

Kirk:  I believe he was asked by the King to do this.

Trevor: That is my understanding as well. Yeah, and he also mentions talking to Raphael Mechoulam. So he is a well-connected cannabis man internationally and practicing in Morocco. So this fellow is a good contact for us. He provides some very good information.

Medhi: I am Mehdi, I am a manager of a company which does PR, which works also with political people, people from sports, football also, artists, and I am the one who represents them in front of the media. And some influence people here in Morocco and also people who come outside, from outside. Regarding cannabis, I start working in this industry two years ago with some Dutch people who come in Morocco and who express their interest regarding the cannabis legal markets in our country. With them, I discovered this new industry for me. We moved a lot, we saw a lot of fields here in the north of Morocco, in the region of Rif. And then I started also to connect them with the people in this industry in Morocco. And I discovered as I said, this industry from the fields to the final clients who are the laboratories, especially laboratories in Switzerland and Germany. And now I work with these people to improve this medical legal market to be the one who import the first kilos to these laboratories.

Trevor: That's excellent. And Mehdi, do we have it right that the first legal medical cannabis crops came off about four years ago? Is that when the laws started changing in Morocco?

Medhi: Unfortunately, this industry launched with very good and very positive intentions in the beginning because our King created this agency, ANRAC (Agency for the Regulation of Activities relating to Cannabis) which is the legalization also of this market. They give thousands of licenses for a lot of farmers, investors, companies, cooperatives. Also laboratories, big one here in Morocco and Africa to start, but this ecosystem was not really available to start working in the good way. Because there is no connection between the farmers and the laboratories, because I think that it's a problem of mentalities. We have the farmers with the old mentalities, with the customs, old customs, because the majority of them, as you know, they work in the dark market. And the other side, you have the laboratories with the the management processes etc. And the connections between the two sides didn't work. There is some people, and now I want to thank Dr Rabii because he created this association AMCUC (Moroccan Consultative Association for Cannabis Use). He's the one who tried to build this strong connection between the farmers and industrials and also this association contact very influential person in this industry in all over the world. We have people come from America, in many countries in Europe, et cetera, but unfortunately they didn't find the good weather to work, but before one week or two weeks ago, The situation changed and now we are working to improve this collaboration between all the actors of this industry in Morocco with our partners outside Morocco to relaunch this market to sell the product with the European conformity, clean product without... No contamination etc etc and we are working on it and I hope that we will arrive to our goals.

Trevor: Oh, that's fantastic. And I'd be remiss since you're a PR guy if I didn't ask. So who's the biggest footballer in your PR firm? You said your PR firm also looks after stars and footballers. Who's the biggest football that your company represents.

Medhi: I am not only PR manager of footballer, I am also FIFA agent. And we are lucky here in Morocco because the strategy of our King now paid because I don't know if you saw the new biggest stadium in Rabat. It's a really miracle because Morocco built it in 14 months and it will be one of the stadiums of the World Cup. That we will organize in Morocco in 2030. Thank you.

Kirk:  You mentioned earlier that the king has made it urgent for the cannabis industry. Can you elaborate on what that means by what is urgent? What is he trying to do with it? What's his goal, the king's goal?

Medhi: Because one of the goals of our king is to have the same level between cities and the rural world. For our country it is a social challenge because a lot of families need this business to live for the life of the family and to have incomes also. The majority of them, they work in the dark markets, as I said, and now for them also is an opportunity to integrate this legal market, to have incomes from the legal markets, to contribute also in our Moroccan economy, okay? And cannabis in some regions, especially in the North, in the Rif is a question of maybe a century, more than 100 years, and they can do other things. And they are specialized in cannabis. But now with this legal market, maybe they have to improve their methods and their processes. And I want to speak about the GACP certificate. Now, the government does a lot of effort. To give free trainings to these farmers, to know what is the GACP, and to prepare them to be exactly, to be in the norms of the European and international market. Because the problem of Moroccan cannabis, because these people didn't respect the processes, we have contaminated product with metals, plants, et cetera. We have water, or maybe sometimes plants, which is contaminated, but with the new strategy of GACP, it's not only to have license to have this paper, no, it is to practice really the recommendation of this good practice of agriculture.

Kirk: So G-A-C-P, what does that stand for?

Medhi: Good, agricultural Cannabis Practice.

Kirk:  And that's a European standard.

Medhi: And the European standard is the summum, the top of the needs. They have a lot of points, a lot processes. It is very, very hard to respect, more than the American and the Canadian one also. And when you have the European GACP, you can sell your product all over the world without any problem. And the association of Dr. Rabii AMCUC they do training, as I said, for doctors, for also the people who comes from the pharmaceutical industry, and they have also to know this agricultural practice. Because when you working in some industry, you have to have all the information about all the supply chain from the fields. To the final clients.

Trevor: Mehdi, and I don't know if you know, but I'll ask are there pharmaceutical companies in Morocco who are looking to take cannabis and turn them into products or is it more to take cannabis and export it to Europe and have companies in Europe process it there?

Medhi: We have we have the both the both case. Okay. We have the the one who want to do the only the middle product and we have a the other one who wants you to have the final product the the medicines. Who can they can sell it also in in in Moroccan in the Moroccan market but but when you speak now about the pharmaceutical industry is another war because as you know they have some products in the market and when they will start working with the cannabis product they will kill their own product and lost a lot of money in their investments, as you know, but this is the problem with them.  You have some laboratories who can play the game, but the other ones, they manifest some resistance regarding the several and the investment they did before.

Kirk:  To sort of clarify for the audience, because we talked off camera, but now that we're on camera, in Morocco, cannabis is legal for medicine, correct?

Medhi: Yes, yes.

Kirk:  And cannabis is illegal for industrial.

Medhi: Yes, industrial, to be clear, it's for medicines, for cosmetics products and food supplement products also.

Kirk:  Okay, but it's not legal for recreation, like when people approach me on the streets of Marrakesh and say, I got hashed, that's not illegal.

Medhi: It's a project for the future, but for now it's the international. Now I saw Dr. Rabii, he comes, he will join us.

Trevor: Hi Dr. Rabii. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Redouane Rabii: Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity.

Trevor: We're just going to get you to introduce yourself and then tell us how you became interested in Cannabis.

Dr. Redouane Rabii: Okay, yes. I am Professor Rabii, I am a professor for Neurology and Research, more than 30 years and this is why I chose cannabis because I am president for Moroccan Endo-urology Association and also for Regenerative Medicine Association of Morocco and also when you say cannabis, that's cannabis, I see many patients in my practice. Prostate cancer, metastatic, or bladder cancer, or kidney cancer with the bone. So they have pain. You cannot manage this pain with just morphine or anything. But when you see that cannabis, you have no side effects, no side effect, and you can no urology limit. So this is my, I think, why cannot do cannabis in Morocco for many, many disease, urology, pain. This is my, So, in 2021, you decide to do this with this association before the agency come and we work two years without agency with the government and all thing it was good because you have many relation with Israel, with the agency.  And you do in one year you do many, many, meeting and many, you go quickly. Just but with the agency when it come, agency, they have the objective is not the same. When I talked with the President at this time, I talked with him, I told him that just for me, the medical cannabis is the priority for Morocco. For him, it's just cosmetic or some food. So this is not economic, cannot have a good economic business. So, so this is why I do a convention with the office in Morocco. We have 4,000 people, offices, and also for medical medicine, general medicine, to have education through little amount to give him all the study about the plant. I have Professor Marzoche, he's ethnobotanic, to give him what is a plant, and he has some pharmacologists, some physicians, some specialty for talking about medical cannabis in his specialty. This is why I want to go fast and to prepare the prescriber as a medical or as a pharmaceutical to work in cannabis with good practice. I do, my reference is the Green Book, it's a Green Book from Israel, it is the third edition. I see this book is good because it's very summary or all about cannabis, since the plant, the ethnobotanic, the indication and also the side effect and all things. This is, I do those, so now the medical, many, my friend, a colleague and student, they are, you know, what is plant, what it is, how can to manage the pathology, is dependent for each patient and not the same, the follow-up, this is why. And I told him which indication is not validated and you can not do anything. So this is only medication. Who can, and not it's blocked by the agents. So this is a problem. So, this is why I talked today, you have no, no. But for me, I am optimist that in this years, all things will be changed, because for years, you have done nothing about medical cannabis.

Trevor: Okay. In your own practice, Dr. Rabii, when you see people using cannabis, are they using like a cannabis oil and orally? Are they inhaling? What have you seen in your practice? What's worked the best?

Dr. Redouane Rabii: I press for him to bring the world from outside of Morocco because it's well when you see or you see this is not a good CBD. They have no trackability. When I talk to the industry, give me the notice. How many CBDs, CBGs? I don't know. That's CBD? And something I am surprised that we see. With some melatonin with CBD for sleeping. It's crazy. This is melatonin, you know, and answer this example, many example for that. That this is, for me, I prescribe to my patient to give outside the Morocco, the CBD, a full spectrum, 3,000 milligram or 2,000 milligrams for some have pain of cancer, and the follow up is very good. You begin slowly and low. This is for cannabis. Go slowly and go low. This is my practice. And you can see what you can do for each patient. For my practice, for some headaches, some pain after the operation, we do operation for bladderectomy and the big operation for six hours. After, I give him just one. And you cannot do morphine, because morphine give obstruction, abuse and constipation. So, I have some practice for that and also my colleague did not pick that for Moroccan wall when you see that the farmer who do that, it's open area, open. The water is not very good, it is water from the river or something. So the protection is not good, you have animal you can go in.

Trevor: Dr. Rabii so we've talked a little bit about patients. What's going on with your organization trying to get more medical cannabis in Morocco? What have you been doing with the government?

Dr. Redouane Rabii: Yes, now we work with university faculty. My colleague is also in association, is a professor for research in pharmacology. And you have many, you do now, many research from some indication like you are trying for about cannabis and for blood tumor and also to test for blood cancer because I have met him two years before.  Mechoulam in Israel, I have a meeting with him and he is in his house and he told me about the future is flavonoid for anti-cancer in some blood cancer, prostate cancer. So I am talking about this way to do that, about also for pain, you do some study in animal now in university.

Trevor: And we talked with Ahmed Labied about three years ago, 2023, and at that point he was saying that that was 2023-ish was when the first legal crop of cannabis was coming off in Morocco. How was the legal medical cannabis system gone since then?

Dr. Redouane Rabii: We have no system. I put the government on the system like Israel, because I know the system for Israel is very good. You have the director for agency, is a pharmacist, is an office in. This is my, I give him, you cannot do medical cannabis, we don't have medical agency, director, because you talk, you must be have, you must send the agency. Agency for anything, for industry, for. For complement element, oligohaline or some, but medical cannabis, it must have office and pharmaceutical to do that like Yuval in Israel. I have invited Israel to try him in Morocco, he's a minister for cannabis medical, and he had the strategy. His strategy is the book, Green Book, to give education to pharmaceutical and Ophicyn. I do that, though now the But it is very easy if you are waiting for the medication. But I told him four years before, you must do the good practice, help a farmer to give him help and the money to do the good production. For me when I see with my history and four years and I see many people, I go to Las Vegas in CannMED, I got to London for medical cannabis, now I know, I am very for you. The industry, the big pharma in Morocco, don't want to have the medical cannabis in Morocco. Like in London. London is a very, because it's a lobby, it's a problem. I am a medical, I want to good thing for my patient. But industry, this is money. If you give CBD for all disease. You have no, what do you do with Paracetamol and it's the first one in the world. That I know that the urgency, he told you, yes, yes you can do for some disease. Epilepsy, you have not many patients for a relapse of epilepsy. For pain, yes oncology, but this is one thing I put him to that. But the agencies, the industry, they do three years for the government, you can do, you're trying to do, but for me, you have never seen the medication for the cannabis. Because London, England, they are a very advanced country, and you cannot do that. The professor told me, Rabbi, I have lobbied in UK, you cannot have to do some indication for medication, cannabis. This is why. And Morocco, you begin, and they begin, I don't know that. Maybe when you push him now You can do that, you can talk the reality to the people. But this is why you move with chocolate, with CBD, or drink CBD, or this is crazy. But the patient, you have pain. You have millions of people with pain. The first cancer in Morocco is prostate cancer for me. So you have metastatic, many patients. And so this is an indication and order for women also they have breasts so they have many indication but the industry don't want to do that. I told the industry give help to the farmer do the indoor or greenhouse and give give him but he told me you cannot invest and do the money for the farmer we don't we don't close. Maybe sometime you can go alone. So this is some problem working. But now I begin to see that you have no choice. You can do to answer the question if you want to do medical cannabis or you cannot to do it.

Kirk:  The patient has to buy their cannabis online and have it shipped to Morocco? Is that how it works?

Dr. Redouane Rabii: They have many people, his family, to travel to France, Spain, so they give the product. And with CBD, we don't test CBD. And some people, I know that my colleague is a professor at URUJI. And his father, he had cancer prostatic. So two years before, he have metastatic. He told him, you can smoke. They give him smoke. And his father is a professor. He knows what is a medical. And he told, yes, with morphine, I cannot do anything, but now I smoke because I have no pain. I have good appetite, yeah? And also I sleep. This is what, you have no choice. He's a professor, he know all things. But he use most morphine. This is the reality.

Medhi: Dr. Rabii was more direct than me regarding the laboratories and the pharmaceutical area.

Dr. Redouane Rabii: They will try to do some for psoriasis and some cream. This is crazy. The cannabis is to give wall or something.

Kirk:  People go to Spain, people go to Spain and come across.

Dr. Redouane Rabii: Yes.

Kirk:  They come across on the boat and bring the cannabis.

Dr. Redouane Rabii: Yes, the products, the wall, and you have no trust, because they have this family, they have paid, and you cannot found in Morocco. If you tell someone, and when you see that the products will be in some office, they will have no technology or respect. When you see the pesticides, and some products, some metal, some this a contamination. I told him before three years, you must do in Morocco the lab tests, the national lab tests. You cannot do the good production without having laboratory, national laboratory independent of the agency. They can do, if you give them all the people in Morocco can send his cannabis, his flowers, and you can It is uh respect the production for bacteria for for for pesticides for toxic for anything they have no laboratory anymore what you can what how we can manage this is this is a problem.

Trevor: So, Dr. Rabii, thank you very much. Medhi, you organized this very well. Thank you both of you. This was excellent. We really appreciate your time.

Dr. Redouane Rabii: Thank You for your time also.

Kirk:  Before we get into questions, we should get some statistics about Morocco. Morocco is a constitutional monarchy, right? Not all monarchies give their king or monarchs power, but countries such as Liechtenstein, Monaco, Morocco, Jordan, Kuwait, Burheim, their constitutions grant substantial discretion powers to the sovereign. So, the sovereign...

Trevor: The current king of Morocco.

Kirk:  The king of Morocco has given Dr. Rabii permission to go out and make cannabis and promote cannabis as medicine. Right now in in Morocco Cannabis is legal, as they said, for medicinal, cosmetic, and industrial purposes. So medicinal cannabis is out there, but I think it's similar to Spain. I think that it has to do with the CBD and not the THC, because most of the stuff that was moved off legally was CBD cannabis, not THC cannabis. However, Morocco is also known for some of the finest hash in the world for for a long long time. So cannabis is very well known and anybody in the cannabis culture will know Moroccan hash. I mean I knew about it in the 70s. I saw it when I was in Spain and I think I talked about not having the ability to have a pipe so I never got a chance to try it. But in Morocco I never had a chance to consume cannabis. I just never did. And I didn't do that because I was traveling with friends that don't participate and for tourists to do it it's still rather a stigma and many and I didn't get to the Rif mountains again until after I left my friends so um anyway so some history about Morocco you can learn this stuff on on Wikipedia if you'd like uh but that's just a quick little background. So anyway, sorry, there's questions about the interview.

Trevor: No, so just some of the interesting things that came up and again sorry about some of the audio quality but like you said the king of Morocco is making a big push for medical cannabis and not surprisingly trying to support some of local farmers who have been growing cannabis, like you said, probably for generations, but he's trying to get some everything up to up to a good level. So one of the words of the day is GACP, the Good Agricultural Cannabis Practice. So if the farmers are growing it at that level, then you can export it to Europe and around the world. And the King was offering free training to Moroccan farmers to do that. And yeah so from the first part with Medhi,  just the the real push the King is making to make this a viable industry especially the the medical end but Dr. Rabii talking about you know when his patients are using cannabis oil it seems to be more often than not imported like from Europe where like you said some of the best cannabis in the world has grown in the Rif valley and it's not.

Kirk:  Rif Mountains.

Trevor: At the moment, Rif Mountains, it doesn't seem to be or not as much used by medical patients in Morocco.

Kirk:  Yeah, it was interesting because we had this conversation when I was in Marrakesh. And so I used that as a little bit of knowledge that I took with us as we traveled, because Michelle and I ended up going to Casablanca. And we went from Casablanca into Fes and got lost in the Fes Medina, which is its own story. And then we made our way back into the Rif Mountains from the south going north to meet up with some people that promised me access to the cosmetic world of cannabis. So I got there and we're going to make this another series, right? So there's going to be another episode in Morocco that we will talk to a gentleman from this company and currently he wants to be known as Anonymous. But he was essentially telling me that it's very difficult right now for the legal cannabis industry to get in because the industry is so entrenched in the black market and there are so many families making money. And I think they talked about this in the conversation. So many families are making money on the illegit side that it's hard to turn them into the legal side. But I did meet some people and I spent a day with people who are on the legal side. And I don't want to go any further on this because that's going to be the next episode, how I got into the Rif Mountains, I met people, but...

Trevor: No, and I'm looking forward to that, but just a few highlights that I got from Dr. Rabii, he and you mentioned earlier, I'm jealous, got a sit-down conversation or two with Dr. Mechoulam, Professor Raphael Mechoulam, the discoverer of THC, legendary figure in cannabis world. And he was talking to him about flavonoids and how, you know... Mechoulam thought that flavonoids might be the the future of treating certain types of cancers and then yeah Rabii just talking about it from his clinical experience, you know as a urologist so for those of you who don't speak doctor, Urologist is working on the the pee parts of a guy and so, you know there's lots of prostate and other things get involved. So after your a surgery from a urologist don't want to have constipation and you don't wanna have urinary retention. Two things that can happen if you use opioids, morphine like drugs as a painkiller after surgery and he was having great results with using as a from the little bit of a language barrier, a little unclear if he was just using cannabis for pain control or using cannabis to reduce the amount of opioids but regardless he was getting great results from cannabis pain control post surgery for for urinary tract stuff and the other that, back to Dr. Mechoulam that uh Dr. Rabii when he's trying to set up sort of what called the medical cannabis system in Morocco wanted to base it off of what was going on in Israel. He said hey they've got a great system there and especially the Israeli Green Book which was sort of almost a how-to of setting up a the medical cannabis system and to, with varying degrees of success. That's what Rabii would like to base the Moroccan medical cannabis system on.

Kirk:  Going back to urology, conversations I had with Ted Smith and the Victoria's Cannabis Buyers Club is they've seen some huge results with cannabinoid suppositories shrinking prostate tumors. So there is some amazing research and results happening with cannabis and cannabinoids that's being ignored. And just, you know, our past episodes with the results that Peter Vermuel is having with his acid form. It remains a fascinating subject. I hope we can produce more of these podcasts.

Trevor: Me too and you know and hopefully you keep traveling the world and finding us some interesting people from far-flung lands who agree to talk to us.

Kirk:  Well, standby, there's going to be one more story, hopefully maybe two stories, but one more story out of Morocco. And that's when I get back into the Rif Mountains and meet these gentlemen from this cosmetic company. Yeah, so I'm Kirk Nyquist. I'm the registered nurse.

Trevor: Yeah, I'm Trevor Shewfelt. I am the pharmacist.

Kirk:  Yeah, and we're Reefer Medness The Podcast, And yeah, guys, if you like what we do, tell a friend if you want to give us a story, pitch one to us. We're always looking for stories and yeah, thank you very much

Trevor: and everyone please come back and listen to us and more interestingly Kirk right now and his trips through Morocco we got at least one more coming up.