KETTAMA, Morocco (AP) — Abdelkhalek Benabdallah strode among towering marijuana plants and checked the buds for the telltale spots of white, indicating they are ready for harvest.

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