Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Medical Marijuana Debate Heats Up in Israel

The debate over medical marijuana use in Israel has gained momentum in recent weeks, as evidenced by the vociferous attacks on Health Minister Yael German’s Facebook page and the protests outside her home last week, as well as the Knesset Health Committee discussion on the subject on Monday.

That meeting ended with an announcement that 11 more doctors would be authorized to prescribe medical marijuana by the end of the year, bringing the total number of doctors authorized to prescribe the drug to 19 by year’s end.

After the health ministry began regulating medical marijuana, only the ministry’s medical cannabis unit was permitted to approve patient requests for the drug. In addition, eight oncologists from Sheba, Assaf Harofeh, Rambam and Rebecca Sieff hospitals were accredited to prescribe medical marijuana to cancer patients in an effort to shorten the waiting period for Health Ministry approval.

The ministry also said it intends to certify doctors outside of central Israel to directly prescribe marijuana treatment, including both oncologists and other specialist doctors.

For more, go to Haaretz

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 credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link 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.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.