Recently Mexico became one of the few countries to legalize marijuana cultivation and possession, joining Bangladesh, Colombia, Uruguay, and others. But in some regions, most specifically the Middle East, there is a set of strict laws when it comes to cannabis possession or cultivation.

A Moroccan journalist has been arrested for his role in a television documentary on cannabis trafficking in his country, the head of the website for which he works said Thursday.

"Mohammed Drissi Kamili was arrested on Monday from his family home in Casablanca," Ali Amar of the website ledesk.ma told AFP, adding that he was moved to prison in Chefchaouen in northern Morocco.

He said Kamili had not taken part in filming or editing the documentary but had provided figures and information for the documentary made for France's Canal+, which was broadcast on November 18.

The documentary unveils the alleged implication of police and the coastguard in the smuggling of drugs to the European continent.

MADRID –  Spanish and Portuguese police say they have dismantled an organization that used powerboats to import large quantities of drugs into Spain from Morocco and have arrested 15 suspects.

A statement says surveillance began when evidence emerged of a large-scale, well-organized smuggling operation based in southwestern Spain.

The gang allegedly used a network of specially-equipped piers and warehouses to receive drugs and was able to move part of its operation to southern Portugal when it discovered its activities were being watched, Saturday's statement says.

French police have seized more than seven tonnes of cannabis from three hired vans parked on a Paris street, France's largest haul in two years.

Customs officers found 7.1 tonnes of cannabis resin in the unoccupied vans in the affluent 16th district of the capital, the Finance Ministry, which oversees the customs service, said in a statement on Sunday.

A police source said the consignment had been transported from Morocco via Spain, a common route.

A new draft law aims to legalize marijuana growing for medical and industrial uses, a controversial idea for a Muslim nation

Kettama, Morocco — In the rugged Rif mountains, Abdelkhalek Benabdallah strode among towering marijuana plants, checking the buds for the telltale spots of white that indicate they are ready for harvest.

Much of the crop had been picked and left to dry on the roofs of stone-and-wood huts that dot the valley, the heart Morocco’s pot-growing region. Benabdallah says he openly grows the crop, while understanding the risk: “We are regularly subject to blackmail by the gendarmes,” he said as he scythed through stalks and wrapped them into a bundle.

Story by Seshata

It is the middle of September, and the annual cannabis harvest in Morocco is about to commence. While some fields here and there have already been harvested, as is evident from the bare, vaguely oblong patches scattered here and there on the otherwise verdant hillsides, the vast majority are yet to be cut. PROHBTD has come to the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, where the bulk of the country’s cannabis crop is cultivated, to observe the typical routine of an average day during harvest time.

The Colorado Department of Revenue reported $70 million in tax revenue from the sale of recreational marijuana, between July 2014 and June 2015. This history-making record easily topped the $42 million revenue the state made from alcohol in the United States within the same period of time. Marijuana has been so productive in Colorado that the state issued a tax holiday for marijuana items, proving that legalisation and proper regulation of the drug can significantly contribute its quota to revenue in any economy.

In the Strait of Gibraltar (Spain) (AFP) - As the powerful motors of their speedboat roared, Spanish police used a thermal imaging camera to scan the sea in the Strait of Gibraltar for traffickers smuggling hashish from Morocco.

It's just after midnight and the cameras and radars that monitor the coast detect a dodgy-looking boat.

The control centre informs police in Algeciras, a port city in southern Spain just 90 minutes by ferry from Morocco, and three officers immediately jump into the boat to investigate.

"They are likely looking for a place to unload their merchandise," said one of them, Jesus, who declined to give his last name.

Conversations about cannabis policy are heating up. So it’s no surprise that we suddenly seem immersed in claims and counterclaims on a slew of topics related to cannabis use and regulation.

Cannabis causes schizophrenia. Cannabis regulation leads to increased traffic fatalities. These are just some of the examples that seem to pop up, again and again, in news articles and online. They sound true, perhaps because they are repeated so many times, and also because they are often said to be based on scientific evidence.

For several years, the annual reports of the United Nations Office against Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) indicate a net decrease in the production of cannabis cultivation in Morocco. But if the land areas used for this crop have undoubtedly been reduced since that Rabat has engaged in a "war against drugs" in 1992, cannabis resin production has not decreased in same proportions.

A real gap between the assessment of Moroccan hashish production made by UNODC or INCSR and quantities of cannabis seized in Europe and Morocco, thus casting serious doubt on the figures.