Israeli Parliament to Vote on Bill Expanding Medical Cannabis Laws
Last week, the Israeli Parliament gave a preliminary okay to the bill that seeks to make medical cannabis more readily available to seriously ill patients. In a surprise move, the leader of the Ra’am party, speaking in Arabic, expressed his support for the bill which the opposition thought had no chance of passing.
The initiative proposed by the member of the Knesset Sharren Haskel of the New Hope party would allow anyone with a license from the Ministry of Health to legally cultivate, process, and sell cannabis for medical purposes.
Israeli 100,000 Patients Caught in Red Tape
Speaking before the plenum after the vote, Israel’s Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz said that the reform had been long needed and was welcome news for medical cannabis patients in the country. The bill, if passed, would put an end to shortages of medicine in pharmacies and allow the companies to increase exports.
Medical cannabis has been legal in Israel since the 1990s for a limited number of conditions and has been researched extensively. Over the years, the country emerged as one of the major producers and suppliers of the medicine on the global market. However, the local patients have long complained that there are too many bureaucratic hurdles and that cannabis is very difficult to obtain.
Opposition to the Bill is Still Strong
Many opponents of the initiative were absent during the vote, counting on the coalition’s Arabic party, Ra’am, to block its passing.
Ra’am’s leader, Mansour Abbas, was against a similar initiative that was proposed several months ago and included the decriminalization of the recreational use of the substance. He said that his party couldn’t condone recreational cannabis on religious grounds. However, they gave their support to the new bill which is restricted to medical use.
The legislation will now go to the Parliament’s health committee which will prepare the draft for the first reading. It is to be seen if the bill will pass because many members of the Knesset, including opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, say they are against it.