Start-Up Nation Poised To Corner the Global Medical Marijuana Market
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
By Naomi Zeveloff November 3, 2016
Medical marijuana is on track to become a booming industry in Israel, with 36 Israeli companies now doing clinical research on cannabis, according to a report in the Economist.
That figure comes from Saul Kaye, the CEO of the venture fund and technology incubator iCAN.
Israel’s health ministry is licensing a list of about 100 doctors to prescribe the drug, and regular pharmacists will be able to stock it.
What’s more, in August, the agriculture minister announced that local growers will soon be allowed to export their crop.
There’s a reason why medical marijuana research is blossoming in Israel, even though the country’s right wing government is against legalization of marijuana for recreational use.
Israel’s strong agricultural and medical sectors, combined with its reputation as “startup nation” have primed it for developing marijuana for medical use.
What’s more, wrote the Economist, it has a 60-year head start on the United States where marijuana research is just beginning.
While the United States is just beginning to review laws that hamper research with an eye to possibly changing them, Israeli scientists have been looking into the topic for decades. Raphael Mechoulam, considered the father of cannabis research, is an Israeli professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Israel researchers are looking into uses of medical marijuana for a range of conditions beyond pain relief, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Tourette’s syndrome.
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.
