Cannabis Laws in the Middle East: Religion, Culture, and Absolute Prohibition

How Ancient Theological Dogmas and Modern Pragmatism are Reshaping MENA Drug Policy

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region represents perhaps the most conservative and heavily guarded barrier in the global drug control architecture. Unlike the constitutional challenges seen in Latin America or the pragmatic modernization occurring in Oceania, the legal landscape of the Middle East is deeply intertwined with the sacred. Here, state laws are inseparable from religious dogmas, and drug policy is perceived not merely as a component of criminal law, but as a matter of national security, sovereignty, and cultural survival in the face of Western liberalisation. Nevertheless, this monolithic prohibition conceals deep civilisational rifts and paradoxical economic phenomena.

The Theological Rift: Sharia, Hashish, and Sufi Mysticism

At the core of Middle Eastern legal doctrine lies Islamic law (Sharia), where the primary criterion for a substance’s legitimacy is its classification by religious theologians. The contemporary Islamic consensus relies on two key concepts:

• Haram (Absolute Prohibition): Psychoactive substances that cloud the mind (muskirat) are unconditionally equated with alcohol and are strictly forbidden.
• Makruh (Detested/Discouraged Action): A less rigid category under which some historical schools of thought classified substances that do not cause obvious intoxication but still harm the body (mufattirat).

This strict legal canon clashes sharply with the region’s centuries-old cultural matrix. The Middle East is historically both the birthplace and a major consumer of hashish (concentrated cannabis resin). Dating back to the 12th century, the use of hashish was woven into the mystical practices of certain Sufi orders in the Levant and Egypt. Within this tradition, the plant was viewed not as a recreational drug or social pastime, but as a tool for sacred trance and spiritual purification.

This historical dualism has defined the unique nature of Middle Eastern prohibition: at the official state level, absolute intolerance rooted in Sharia is declared, while in the shadow of everyday domestic culture, hashish remains a deeply entrenched, socially tabooed, yet omnipresent reality.

The Uncompromising Wall of the Persian Gulf

In the monarchies of the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar), religious strictness has translated into draconian legal regimes. Drug policy here is elevated to an absolute state priority. These countries utilise international treaties as an unyielding diplomatic shield to justify employing the harshest measures of criminal law enforcement.

For the possession, smuggling, or distribution of cannabis, the legislation of Saudi Arabia and the UAE mandates lengthy prison sentences, massive fines, deportation, and, in cases of large-scale trafficking, the death penalty. Any attempt by Western institutions or human rights organisations to pressure these regimes toward decriminalization is met with a fierce response: drug policy is declared a sovereign right to protect Islamic identity and public morality. The Gulf wall cannot be breached by economic arguments – for these states, maintaining the conservative status quo is far more important than any potential revenue from a legalised market.

Israel: A Biopharmaceutical Hub Encircled by Prohibition

Just a few hundred kilometres from these zones of absolute prohibition exists a phenomenon that completely overturns all notions of Middle Eastern conservatism. Israel has become a global epicenter for scientific research and a technological hub for medical cannabis.

Israel’s legal breakthrough did not begin under the influence of social liberalisation, but through academic positivism. In 1964, Professor Raphael Mechoulam at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem isolated and synthesised tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) for the first time in history, a discovery that laid the foundation for understanding the human endocannabinoid system. This fundamental breakthrough transformed cannabis in the eyes of the Israeli establishment from a dangerous drug into a legitimate object of evidence-based medicine.

The state rapidly built an advanced ecosystem. The Israeli Ministry of Health’s Medicinal Cannabis Unit (Yakar) established a rigorous and transparent licensing system for medical cannabis, controlled by the authorities. Israeli companies have become global leaders in agrotech, the breeding of unique genetic strains, and the development of precise pharmaceutical dosages. The Israeli model has proven that it is possible to operate within the strict limits of the relevant UN drug control conventions while simultaneously creating a globally competitive biopharmaceutical industry right in the heart of a prohibitionist region.

Fiscal Pragmatism of the Levant and Maghreb

The third pole of the Middle East consists of countries with deep traditions of illicit agricultural production, such as Lebanon (the famous Beqaa Valley) and Morocco. For centuries, these territories existed under a criminal status quo: states nominally banned cannabis but de facto could not control the inaccessible mountain and valley regions, where hashish cultivation ensured the survival of entire communities.

In recent years, economic crises have forced the governments of the Levant and the Maghreb to pivot from repression to fiscal pragmatism. In 2020, Lebanon became the first Arab country to legalise cannabis cultivation for medical and industrial purposes – the goal being to tear billions in financial flows from the hands of smugglers and shadow networks and redirect them into an exhausted state budget.

Morocco followed the same path, establishing the National Agency for the Regulation of Cannabis-Related Activities (ANRAC) to legalise traditional Rif farmers and reorient them toward legal export to Europe. This is a complex transformation: states are attempting to legitimise a centuries-old underground trade and turn it into a law-abiding pharmaceutical sector.

The Interwoven Middle East

The Middle East demonstrates to the world that three incompatible legal realities can coexist within a single geographical region: the draconian intolerance of the Persian Gulf, the high-tech biopharmaceuticals of Israel, and the forced fiscal pragmatism of Lebanon and Morocco. The MENA region has no intention of copying Western recreational models. Its evolution follows its own distinct path – where the modernization of laws occurs either through rigorous medical science or economic necessity, but always under the watchful eye of traditional culture and the state.