Newspaper article 16, Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina

CONTRABAND: “RAISON D'ETRE” FOR THE INHABITANTS OF THE NORTH.
A Moroccan citizen: “I was obliged to buy anti-rabies medicine as chemists and health authorities do not have it”.

By Mohammed Saadi

According to research done the practice of contraband in the north is a result of its being marginalised along several decades. Even after Moroccan independence not much changed since the colonised era. The region lacked infrastructures and simple equipments; this pushed the inhabitants to look for a way to survive. So they have worked both in cultivating 'Hashish' and smuggling. As there was no plan to promote the local economy unemployment is widespread. Graduates and employees with weak incomes have taken part in smuggling.

The occupied cities of Melilla and Ceuta are the major source of the smuggled products in the northern east. If we go to the Spanish frontiers we can see thousands of people who practise smuggling by seducing Moroccan markets with products which have no expiry date labels; this causes a great loss for the national economy and national production units. In Tangiers, local markets provide a huge number of contraband products; especially the "Casa Barata", "Fendek chajra", "Lmsla" and "Idrissiya" markets.

Some smugglers insist that the lower price of the contraband products is the main element that attracts consumers to buying them rather than expensive national products.

A Moroccan citizen insists that because of the rarity of some necessary products people are obliged to buy smuggled products, like anti-rabies medicine, that are not available at chemists; this lack of medicines has caused a lot of citizen's death.

Tangiers specialises in a different kind of contraband in its markets: drugs, foodstuffs, electronic products and medicines. One can easily find suburban people enjoying satellite channels, televisions and digital machines.
Researchers in this domain insist that the government should find alternative solutions to this phenomenon. A researcher from Tangiers suggests that Tangiers with its free zone market must help smugglers to get involve in the importing products rather than smuggling.

Translated Sakina Elkhattabi