Israel and Canada Join To Study and Implement Medical Marijuana Uses

Israel has been at the forefront of marijuana research since Raphael Mechoulam isolated and identified the THC molecule in the 1960s.

While research efforts have been constantly, obnoxiously hindered in the states by federal agencies (as well as petty religious zealots like Arizona's Kimberly Yee), the Israeli government is funding and supporting breakthrough research on the many healing potentials of the cannabis plant. Doctors from around the world look to Israel for their path-breaking studies in the use of cannabis to treat basal-cell carcinoma, PTSD, Crohn's disease, fibromyaliga, Parkinsons' Disease and, now, pediatric epilepsy.

The patient-approval process is much more rigorous than California, America's originator of legal medical cannabis for states, and is often aimed at end of life issues.



Instead of marijuana, however, Israel does has a hash subculture. Hash is the traditional form of cannabis in the region. Mechoulam obtained his first cannabis for research from hashish seizures. He and his research partners first tested the hashish themselves before conducting their research, as Mechoulam has related many times when telling this history.

Boaz Wachtel, and his participation in Israel’s Ale Yarok political party, is credited with the effort to decriminalize cannabis in Israel.



So, because of America's religious zealots, scientific research finds friendlier environs outside of their reach. The Republican Party needs to jettison this faction because they are harming this nation by their anti-science, hair-on-fire zealotry. While other nations are operating multi-million dollar research projects, collaborating across nations to supply data looking at what may be the most important medical breakthrough of the late twentieth century - the discovery and study of the endocannabinoid system and the interaction with cannabis to maintain homeostasis - the U.S. has to deal with reactionaries like Kimberly Yee, Chris Christie, and groups like SAM.

If these reactionaries would simply acknowledge that marijuana is safer than alcohol, and best managed outside of the black market for things other than medical uses, we could move forward, rather than remain a nation that gives Nixon high fives in his grave every time a drug warrior opens his or her mouth.

(Patrick Kennedy, at the SAM site, has a big picture and quote about cannabis causing mental illness, when this has recently, yet again, been rebuked by science. We now have Kennedys on record as an anti-vaccination crusader and drug war liar. If anyone wants to know why I despise political dynasties, those are prime examples... but I digress.)

Cynic that I am, I have to wonder how much the alcohol industry lobby plays into the concerns about cannabis...



As Closner noted, Israel and Canada are coming together to combine the growing skills of Canadian marijuana growers (one of three areas in the world, since Ronald Reagan, that focused on hybridization of marijuana, along with Amsterdam and Northern California.)

As of January 2014, both Israel and Canada, along with other nations, have contacted Uruguay, the first nation to legalize cannabis since the U.S. demanded worldwide illegal status in the Uniform Narcotics Act(s), to grow cannabis for their nations. In Uruguay, the marijuana industry is entirely nationalized. Production, sale and distribution of cannabis is all contained within a governing entity that allows consumers to purchase 40 grams (1.4 oz) per month for $1.00/gram.

Uruguay, Canada and Israel have all decided to ignore the (largely ceremonial, or cover for nations) United Nations International Narcotic Control Board, which refuses to recognize the medical value of cannabis because this board follows the will of federal agencies in the U.S. who do not recognize the medical value of cannabis. Uruguay's President, in response to INCB criticism, said his government aims to take the marijuana market out of the hands of cartels and put it into the hands of the people of the nation...and into the hands of people in the nation of Israel, and the researchers there looking at marijuana as a palliative for many health issues related to aging.



If Canada and Israel combine with Uruguay to obtain cannabis for research, no doubt Uruguay will also become a leading nation in the production of cannabis strains chosen for medical purposes.

In the meantime, MedReleaf projects they will up their capacity to grow 150,000 plants at any one time to supply medical cannabis for Canadians and Israelis.

And in the meantime, small-time, small-minded state and federal Senators hold up or deny medical research, federal agencies deny federal research, Congress refuses to address the issue of cannabis scheduling, and the world goes on without them, leaving them to their places, in the dustbin of history, as footnotes to explain how the U.S. gave up its place as a world-class research nation because...reefer madness.

Maybe the drug warriors would like to look at the new-fangled use of leeches to draw bad humors out of the body.