In Geneva, a mother asks that Morocco finally be placed on the American list of major drug-producing and transit countries
Sylvie Marchand — Genève, Suisse — 2026-09-24
My name is Meriem Zaidi. I live in Geneva. I have a twenty-six-year-old son, and drugs have held him for seven years now. I am not a diplomat, nor a journalist, nor an expert. I am a mother who learned to read official reports because official reports were the only thing no one could dispute with me.
What I discovered in reading them, I want to say here, from this city where international law is spoken of so much.
Morocco does not appear on the American list of major drug-producing or drug-transit countries. Neither on the one notified to Congress on 15 September 2024. Nor on the one transmitted on 15 September 2026.
Twenty-three countries are on it. Morocco is not.
And I will explain why this absence has no basis — citing the documents, not my emotions.
First, what the United States itself writes
The annual report of the United States State Department on narcotics control — the INCSR — devotes a full country page to Morocco, in March 2025. Here is what it says, in black and white:
- “From January to August 2024, authorities seized 2,1 metric tonnes of cocaine in Morocco.”
- “Moroccan cultivators continue to produce illicit cannabis, representing 164 tonnes of hashish seized in the country from January to August 2024. This figure is about 100 tonnes higher than the same period in 2023.”
- “Cocaine is often shipped from South America and transits through Moroccan ports en route to Europe.”
2.1 tonnes of cocaine in eight months. One hundred and sixty-four tonnes of hashish. One hundred tonnes more than a year earlier. And ports — Tanger-Med first among them — presented as crossing points towards Europe.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime writes on its side, in its 2026 world report: “Morocco remains one of the countries of origin of cannabis conveyed to Europe and within Europe.” And, in its North Africa report of January 2026: “The majority of cannabis resin seized in North Africa continues to be reported as originating in Morocco.”
[[BAR]]
What official American documents quantify for Morocco (INCSR 2025, State Department)
!Hashish seized, January–August 2024 | 164 | tonnes
Hashish seized, January–August 2023 | 64 | tonnes
Cocaine seized, January–August 2024 | 2,1 | tonnes
[[/BAR]]
And now, the argument that should settle everything
I will be told, as I am always told: “but Morocco cooperates”. The State Department itself writes it — Morocco is an “important partner” of the United States and of the European Union.
So I read the text that creates this list. And I found a sentence that I ask everyone to read carefully.
In the presidential determination itself — the one of 15 September 2026 — it is written:
“The presence of a country on this list does not necessarily reflect the current efforts of its government in the fight against drugs, nor its coordination with the United States. In accordance with the statutory definition contained in the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, major illicit drug transit or producing countries are placed on the list because of a combination of geographical, commercial and economic factors that allow drugs or chemical precursors to transit or be produced, even if a government has undertaken robust and diligent narcotics control and law enforcement measures.”
Read the end again. “Even if a government has undertaken robust and diligent measures.”
A government's cooperation is therefore not grounds for exemption. This is written by the President of the United States himself, in the document that establishes the list. The law does not ask whether the country defends itself well. It asks whether its geography, its trade and its economy let the drugs through.
And for Morocco, the answer is documented by the State Department's own figures: two tonnes of cocaine in eight months, one hundred and sixty-four tonnes of hashish, transcontinental transit ports, and the resin that leaves its coasts for North Africa.
What I am asking for
I am not asking for the Moroccan people to be accused. I am not asking for sanctions against families.
I am asking for one thing only, and it is a matter of law: that Morocco be placed, at the next presidential determination, on the list of major drug-producing or drug-transit countries.
Such a listing would trigger neither an embargo nor automatic sanctions. It would make one simple thing possible, and that is all I want: it would oblige states to look the figures in the face, publicly, every year, instead of leaving them in a country page that no one reads.
Why am I asking for this from Geneva? Because this is where human rights, public health and trafficking are discussed. Because addiction is not a Moroccan problem, nor an Algerian one, nor a French one — it is global, and it always begins somewhere.
I will be told that I am biased. I am. I am the mother of a boy who started with a party, who went on with a synthetic product that came from elsewhere, and who today lives a life I would not wish on anyone. When you have seen that up close, you lose the taste for diplomatic nuances.
But my bias changes nothing about the figures. They are not mine. They are signed by the United States State Department.
So I put the question, simply: since twenty-three countries are placed on this list on the basis of their geography and their trade, on what criterion is a twenty-fourth excluded — one that lets through two tonnes of cocaine and one hundred and sixty-four tonnes of hashish in eight months?
I do not know the answer. I am asking for it to be given to me — in writing, and published.
Sources: United States Department of State, Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs — 2025 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, Volume I: Drug and Chemical Control, March 2025, “Morocco” country page, official pages 269-270; list of major countries notified to Congress on 15 September 2024, official page 16 · Presidential Determination on Major Illicit Drug Transit or Major Illicit Drug Producing Countries for Fiscal Year 2027, transmitted to Congress on 15 September 2026, United States Department of State, section 706(1) of the Foreign Relations Authorization Act (P.L. 107-228) · UNODC, World Drug Report 2026 · UNODC, North Africa regional report, January 2026.