'I smoke weed, so what?': Morocco's opposition condemns Rapper Toto 'pro-weed' remark at festival

Morocco's opposition socialist party criticised the current government on Tuesday for allowing the "promotion of weed" during a national music festival in Rabat.

During the last parliamentary session, The Progress and Socialism party questioned the ministry's responsibility to allow the Moroccan rapper El Grande Toto, "who publicly declared his weed use and bragged about it," to perform in a state-sponsored festival.

The weed scandal started last week during the press conference that preceded Toto's performance at "Rabat: capital of African culture festival," organised by Morocco's ministry of culture.

A journalist questioned the influence of Toto's "pro-weed songs" on his young fans.

Refusing to assume moral responsibility, Toto responded angrily to the journalist's questions saying, "I smoke weed, so what? (...) It is normal."

"I buy the cannabis from its source [the Rif, northern Morocco], which is not far away from here [Rabat]. (...) and it is known worldwide that the hashish grows in Morocco and it is known that some people come to Morocco just to buy and smoke weed," added Taha Fahssi, known by his stage name El Grande Toto.

Despite his controversial comments, Toto's performance in the state-sponsored festival has not been cancelled.

The Progress and Socialism party flagged Toto's statements as "a crime", stressing that he should not be allowed to carry his performance.

Since the start of his career, the twenty-six-year-old rapper has been frank about his use of weed, smoking it in live streams and rapping about it at national festivals.

His tracks on poverty, drugs, and love gained the Moroccan rapper international fame, mainly among youth, with more than 135 million streams in 178 countries. He was the most listened-to artist in the MENA region on Spotify in 2021.

Cannabis in Morocco had been illegal since the nation's independence in 1956, reaffirmed by a total ban on drugs in 1974.

The annually flowering herb, with its serrate leaflets, was always "a known secret" in the Moroccan kingdom.

Upon the Rif's heights, the cannabis plant has been growing abundantly for centuries making Morocco one of the world's top suppliers of weed.

Pictures of devastated, broken and raged farmers who lost their cannabis crops' due to police groups burning their cultivated cannabis, ploughing the plants, or even arresting the farmer, circulated the internet every year, documenting the cannabis farmers' agony.

Last year, the Moroccan government legalised using cannabis for medical and cosmetic purposes ending decades of Rif farmers’ misery. The law allows only those with an official permit from the state to cultivate the plant under specific restrictions.

However, many parties are still bitter about the decision.

Nevertheless, smoking cannabis is still illegal and religiously controversial in the kingdom. According to Moroccan law, the penalty for using or consuming narcotic substances is imprisonment from two months to one year and a fine of 500 MAD ($US 50) to 5,000 MAD ($US 500), or one of these two penalties.

Yearly, Moroccan police arrest hundreds of cannabis smugglers in an endeavour to limit the growing business of Hashish in the North African Kingdom.