Civil society is sounding the alarm about the prevalence of the “pouffa” drug among young people and adolescents in Morocco, warning against the potential adverse repercussions of its illicit trafficking, distribution, and consumption.
The drug, called “poor-people’s cocaine,” is crack cocaine smoked through repurposed plastic bottles, and has spread among users, posing risks and dangers to citizens across the Kingdom.
Pouffa is made by mixing unusable cocaine residue with other damaging substances in makeshift laboratories.
In recent weeks, reports of arrests have made headlines, as authorities attempt to curb the drug’s growing popularity, and its accessibility which now seems out of control.
In a statement to Hespress EN, Rachida El Mokrie Elidrissi, head of the National Coalition Against Narcotics, said that “the rapid prevalence of this dangerous drug is due to its capability to offer strong sensations of ecstasy and hallucination to vulnerable young people.”
Elidrissi explained that addicts are prone to the lethal promises of such drugs, because of their uninformed tendency to find ways of escapism and experiment with new feelings and delusory pleasures.
‘’Vulnerable adolescents fall easy prey to this kind of drugs, because of immaturity and incapability to view things from an informed, insightful angle,’’ said the expert.
Hassan Al-Baghdadi, head of the National Society for Combating Smoking and Drugs, said that “the state must take action to prevent the spread of these toxins,” stressing that “the sentences issued against drug barons and traffickers do not correspond to the severity of the crime they commit.’’
“Traffickers sabotage the foundation of society in exchange for light sentences that do not exceed three months or a year or a temporary release sentence,” he insisted in a statement to Hespress EN.
Al-Baghdadi highlighted that this drug “has expanded in a very terrible way, as it is produced and promoted by some immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, and its price ranges between MAD 50 and MAD 60 per gram.”
Omar Arbib, head of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights in Marrakech, said that the drug “Pufa” spread at an astonishing rate, noting that the association had repeatedly received “cases of assault committed by drug abusers.”
Speaking to Hespress, Arbib explained that “those who take this drug attack themselves and their assets and create a kind of chaos, because taking this drug gives the user a strong charge of aggression, which leads to violent crimes.”
The human rights activist spoke about the harms of this drug, stating: “Only three uses are sufficient for a person to become frightening, and the damages on the psychological level are serious, not to mention that treating its addiction is very difficult.”
Arbib called for a “sweeping campaign that addresses not only consumers but also promoters, from the small promoter to the drug barons, especially since those behind this situation are organised networks of human trafficking.”
The head of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights in Marrakesh also called for “strengthening the security approach, its capabilities and monitoring mechanisms’’, stressing the urgency of enacting a real economic policy to monitor money laundering while carrying out awareness-raising media campaigns.”
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