Public Use Of Medical Marijuana Now Allowed In Israel, With Exceptions
Image by Nikki Casey
By Naomi Zeveloff May 15, 2017
Israeli medical marijuana patients can now use the drug in public as an oil or a vapor, but still won’t be able to smoke it, per new Health Ministry guidelines, reported Haaretz.
The new guidelines are a significant departure from the old rules, which restricted medical marijuana patients to using the herb in their home, alone.
The Health Ministry changed its procedures after realizing that they were causing headaches for patients who moved or went on vacation and had to contact the ministry in order to keep using the drug.
There are some 30,000 medical marijuana patients in Israel.
With relatively lax regulations on studying the herb, Israel has become a world leader in medical marijuana research. The United States, by comparison, categorizes marijuana as a narcotic, making it difficult for scientists to study it.
In March Israel moved to decriminalize marijuana for recreational use.
Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected] or on Twitter @naomizeveloff
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
