Medical Marijuana Companies Use Israel As Testing Ground

A woman weighs marijuana buds at the second-largest medical cannabis farm in Israel, in Kfar Pines. Image by Getty
Israel is becoming a center of American medical marijuana production and research, as U.S. companies move their grow houses and R&D operations to the Jewish State. It is much easier to conduct medical trials on drugs made from cannabis in Israel than it is in the U.S., where companies must spend several years getting approval from federal agencies to even do basic research on marijuana.
“The seriousness with which the Israeli scientific community approaches this is incomparable,” Charles Pollack, director of the Lambert Center for the Study of Medicinal Cannabis at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, told Rolling Stone. “Israel is a hotbed of quality cannabis research.”
Over 50 American companies currently have medical marijuana R&D operations running in Israel, and 2016 saw over $125 million of investment from U.S. companies in Israeli cannabis operations. One Israeli firm specializing in cannabis R&D expects total investment in Israeli cannabis companies to reach $1 billion over the next ten years.
Israel’s government invests millions of dollars annually into medical marijuana research. American companies often choose Israel as the place to run the early stages of their clinical trials for medical marijuana-based drugs because those same trials would almost certainly be rejected by the FDA.
Even the National Institutes of Health funds hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of medical marijuana research in Israel each year.
Contact Ari Feldman at [email protected] or on Twitter @aefeldman.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Fast Forward 5 Jewish senators accuse Trump of using antisemitism as ‘guise’ to attack universities
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.