JERUSALEM
— Israeli scientists began their pioneering research to isolate the
psychoactive ingredient in marijuana with a 10-pound stash seized by the
Tel Aviv police. That effort, in the 1960s, helped propel Israel to the vanguard of research into the plant’s medicinal properties and lay the foundations for a medical marijuana industry.
Now
the nation’s burgeoning pot business, backed by an unlikely coalition
of farmers, lawyers, scientists, entrepreneurs and the country’s
ultra-Orthodox health minister, is going mainstream — and eyeing markets
abroad.
Marijuana,
or cannabis, is still classified as a dangerous drug in Israel and
remains illegal for recreational purposes. But the government is also at
the forefront of efforts to develop and expand the fast-growing medical
marijuana industry and make Israel a major center for it.
Recent
government efforts to regulate medical marijuana will make it more
accessible and available by prescription at pharmacies. The government
has also appointed a committee to examine the possibility of Israel
becoming one of the few countries to allow exports, although the
destination for products remains unclear.
The Volcani Center, the Ministry of Agriculture’s research organization,
is building a national institute for medical marijuana research. The
chief scientist’s office of the Ministry of Economy has infused millions
of shekels into innovative marijuana companies, much as government
investment helped fuel the Israeli tech boom in the 1990s. The
government is also setting standards for the cultivation, storage and
use of medical marijuana.
“It
is almost unprecedented,” said Tamir Gedo, the chief executive of
Breath of Life Pharma, an Israeli company permitted to grow medical
cannabis and make and distribute products. “It seems the government is
working faster than the private industry.”
The
reforms spearheaded by the Health Ministry, which is led by Yaakov
Litzman of the ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism Party, open up
licensing for an unlimited number of growers, up from eight farms. The
list of doctors trained and authorized to prescribe marijuana is to be
expanded and research encouraged. The reforms, which were approved by
the government in the summer, were formulated in cooperation with the
Ministries of Agriculture, Justice, Internal Security and Finance.
“I
cannot say that I am in favor of cannabis,” Mr. Litzman said at a
business conference last month, reflecting concerns that medical
marijuana could trickle into the recreational market. But Mr. Litzman
said he would even support the idea of export so long as revenues went
to the Health Ministry, adding, “There is a lot of pressure on me.”
Some
of Israel’s more traditional medical institutions and associations are
still averse to joining the party, a wariness that marijuana advocates
put down to a lack of knowledge. The police worry about leakage into the
recreational black market, and some Israelis are concerned that export,
if allowed, would stigmatize the country as one that dealt primarily in
arms and drugs.
About
25,000 Israelis, in a population of 8.5 million, hold permits to use
medical marijuana to ease symptoms of cancer, epilepsy and other
diseases, but that number is expected to grow rapidly. So far, medical
marijuana has been distributed by the growers through special
dispensaries or by home delivery.
The Health Ministry’s written protocols on the matter, known as the Green Book, have generated international interest.
“We
wrote this because we couldn’t find it in other countries,” said Dr.
Michael Dor, a family physician and senior adviser to the Health
Ministry’s medical cannabis unit. “Now everybody is asking about it.”
The
ministry has approved dozens of clinical trials, Dr. Dor said, adding,
“If we don’t do it right here, the specialists will go abroad with their
knowledge, and we have wonderful knowledge here.”
Raphael
Mechoulam, now a professor of medicinal chemistry at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, and his colleague Yechiel Gaoni first isolated
the main compounds, including the psychoactive ingredient —
tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC — with the marijuana supplied by the Tel
Aviv police.
When administrators at the Weizmann Institute of Science,
where Professor Mechoulam was conducting his research, first called the
police with the request, he recalled in an interview, “they asked if I
was trustworthy.”
Professor
Mechoulam, 86, has continued his research in his current post, focusing
on the compounds in the brain that make the active components of
marijuana work. He is also a consultant for the Ministry of Health and
collaborates with research groups around the world.
“Medicinal
cannabis has to follow medical lines of thought and development and
modern medical routes” in order to produce proper drugs, he said.
Pointing to an international paucity of clinical trials, he said,
“Israel has more than the United States at the moment, which is
ridiculous.” In the United States, medical marijuana programs exist in
many states but remain illegal under federal law.
Professor
Mechoulam is also a member of the advisory board of Breath of Life,
whose products, according to Mr. Gedo, the chief executive, are made
according to pharmaceutical best-practice protocols.
“We
are working as a pharmaceutical company, not a cannabis company,” Mr.
Gedo said. Breath of Life is participating in a dozen clinical trials,
including one based on cannabinoids, the chemical compounds in
marijuana, for autism in children with the Shaare Zedek Medical Center
in Jerusalem.
According
to Mr. Gedo, several American companies are conducting trials in Israel
based on Breath of Life’s active pharmaceutical ingredients.
Teva Israel, a subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd.,
recently announced a distribution and cooperation agreement with Syqe
Medical, a Tel Aviv company that developed an inhaler for administering
marijuana in precise doses. The dose can be tailored to each patient
like a standard medical treatment, which experts say should reduce or
eliminate the objections of reluctant physicians.
Two
international medical marijuana conferences have taken place in Israel
this year. At the Cann10 conference in Tel Aviv in September, speakers
discussed science, medicine, technology and commerce. Purveyors, some in
white lab coats, displayed their wares. A grower called PharmoCann
displayed rows of sealed plastic vials containing strains of flowers
undergoing testing with names like Blue, Train Wreck and Voodoo Child.
Israelis have been producing products with varying degrees of THC
for years. Another company at the Cann10 conference, Cannabliss, makes
medical marijuana oil and other nonsmoking products, works with a
professor of immunotherapy and bone marrow at the Hadassah Medical
Center in Jerusalem and supplies the hospital’s medical marijuana
dispensary.
“We
hope the market will open up in the world as soon as possible,” Moshe
Ihea, Cannabliss’s founder and chief executive, said. “First we have to
open up the people.” He added that he had discovered the medicinal
benefits after he suffered a leg injury during an army exercise.
Saul
Kaye, a pharmacist and the chief executive of iCan: Israel-Cannabis, a
venture fund and technology incubator for start-ups driving the global
medical marijuana industry, said this “could be another incredible
economy for Israel.”
He added, “There’s a national consciousness for cannabis that you cannot ignore.”
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