Is Codeine legal in Morocco?

Legal status

Controlled as a produit toxique and not as a narcotic. The dahir of 2 December 1922 on substances vénéneuses prints « Codéine et ses sels », codeine and its salts, in tableau A, as annexed in 1922 in the ONSSA consolidated text read on 22 September 2026, and article 1 of that dahir as modified on 17 March 1953 provides that substances are inscribed in sections I and II of tableaux A, B and C by arrêté, an arrêté not read for this cell. Codeine is expressly carved out of the narcotics table. The tableau B opium alkaloid entry reads « Alcaloïdes de l'opium (à l'exception de la codéïne), leurs sels et leurs dérivés », and codeine then appears in tableau A instead. So the article 1 hook of the 1974 dahir, which runs to substances inscribed in tableau B, does not reach codeine, and neither do articles 2 and 8, which run to substances classified as narcotics. Codeine is a toxic product under the 1922 dahir, with the declaration, locked cabinet, labelling and register duties of Titre Premier.

Consequences if caught

Capital exposure: none. No article of dahir portant loi 1-73-282 of 21 May 1974 provides death or life imprisonment. The ceiling in that dahir is article 2, five to ten years. Conduct distinction, and it is the point of this row. The narcotics articles of the 1974 dahir, articles 2, 3 and 8, attach to « les substances ou plantes classées comme stupéfiants ». This substance is printed in tableau A and not in tableau B, so those articles do not reach it as a narcotic. What does reach it is article 1 of the 1974 dahir, which punishes contravention of the 1922 dahir or of the regulatory texts made for its application with two to five years and a fine of 5.000 to 50.000 dirhams, but article 1 is itself confined to substances inscribed in tableau B, so on the printed text it does not reach a tableau A substance either. The duties that do bite are the 1922 dahir's own: declaration, locked storage, labelling, the sales register and the age limit. Article 13 lets the sentencing court ban a foreign national from the territory for five to ten years, without prejudice to administrative expulsion.

If prescribed or medical

The country level rule is the 1922 dahir's: substances intended for human or veterinary medicine are inscribed in section II of tableaux A, B and C by arrêté of the health administration, and each tableau carries its own dispensing chapter, with tableau B the strictest. A prescribing rule is not a criminal schedule and neither settles the other. Codeine is a scheduled poison here rather than a narcotic, which changes the rule rather than removing it. Carry a prescription for any codeine medicine and expect pharmacy level controls under the tableau A chapter.

Documentation

The chain has three links and the enumerated list sits in the middle one. Dahir portant loi 1-73-282 of 28 rebia II 1394 (21 May 1974), published at Bulletin officiel 3214 of 5 June 1974, pages 928 and 929, enumerates no substance at all. Its article 1 punishes contravention of the dahir of 12 rebia II 1341 (2 December 1922) on the importation, trade, holding and use of substances vénéneuses, or of the regulatory texts made for its application, concerning « les substances classées comme stupéfiants et inscrites au tableau B », and its articles 2, 3, 4 and 8 attach to « les substances ou plantes classées comme stupéfiants ». Classification therefore happens under the 1922 dahir. Article 1 of that dahir, as modified by the dahir of 17 March 1953, divides substances into « Tableau A: produits toxiques », « Tableau B: produits stupéfiants » and « Tableau C: produits dangereux », and provides that they are inscribed in section I and section II of each tableau by arrêté. The operative arrete was not read for this cell. The table annexed to the 1922 dahir and printed in the ONSSA consolidated text read on 22 September 2026 is the original annex as annexed in 1922; it carries no sections, so it predates the structure article 1 now describes. Dahir 1-80-140 of 17 December 1980, at Bulletin officiel 3590 of 19 August 1981, page 404, is a publication dahir: it publishes the 1971 Vienna Convention on psychotropic substances as annexed, and it creates no offence and inscribes nothing in tableau B. Its tableaux I to IV are the treaty's own schedules as printed in 1981, thirty two entries in total, and they were read complete from the page image. Placement for codeine: « Codéine et ses sels » in tableau A of the dahir of 2 December 1922. Search record. Codéine returns three word boundary matches in the 1922 text: once inside the tableau B exception, once as the tableau A entry, and once in the article text. The 1971 Convention tableaux carry no codeine. All searching was done with word boundaries enforced and with plural tolerance, after a search for tetrahydrocannabinol returned a false zero on the gazette's own plural. The dossier for this jurisdiction was treated as A term list and its printed Entry claims were not accepted. It presents English substance names inside a French quotation frame, attributes them to the 1981 Bulletin officiel, and names substances that postdate that printing by decades. Every entry quoted in this cell was read from the rendered page image of the gazette at 150 dpi, because the text layer of the 1974 and 1981 scans carries optical character recognition damage.

Drug laws and enforcement change and vary within a country. This is not legal advice. Always confirm with Morocco’s embassy or official drug authority before traveling; penalties can be severe, including imprisonment.