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Genetically modified marijuana has hit the market
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
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Times are changing, and cannabis suppliers are keeping pace with scientific and technological progress: genetically modified grass has appeared on the market.
Le Monde reports that the French market is still dominated by the traditional product (mostly imported from Morocco - about 200 tons per year), but the winds of change are already being felt. "In ten years, cannabis has clearly changed," notes François Thierry, head of France's Central Committee for the Suppression of Illegal Drug Trafficking.
An all-natural product with low levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is history. In the 1970s, people smoked something completely different than they do now. “In a matter of years, we went from 3% or 4% THC to 10%, and sometimes you can even find cannabis with 30% of this substance,” the expert says.
New varieties of cannabis are increasingly competing with Moroccan hashish. They are more expensive, but more popular due to their high quality - for such a high you can fork out some money.
The situation has changed so much that the Dutch authorities are considering the possibility of returning cannabis to the list of potent drugs. In special establishments in Amsterdam, where you can buy and consume cannabis completely legally, locally produced goods prevail. It is the hemp plantations of the Netherlands (and there are more than five thousand of them in the country) that are the main source of the new generation of marijuana, second only to Great Britain. In both countries, hemp cultivation is moving under glass and into basements. This is no longer a craft, but a large-scale production process, a business. A similar picture is developing in Germany, Belgium and in the south-east of Europe, in particular in Albania.
In February, French police found 700 plants in a warehouse in La Courneuve, northeast of Paris. “More than 200 plants is no longer a supplement to a pension, it’s organised crime,” explains Mr Thierry. But while France remains Europe’s biggest cannabis consumer, its production is lagging behind.
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