Israel to Authorize General Practitioners to Prescribe Cannabis
The high-tech medical cannabis industry in the Holy Land may be more progressive than previously thought. Wednesday, January 20, 2015, Health Minister Ya’akov Litzman announced that the nation of Israel plans on authorizing general practitioners to prescribe cannabis. Israel’s force of doctors may be filling cannabis prescriptions within six months.
“If the reform, which is expected to go into effect within a few weeks, moves ahead without problems, I’ll allow practicing doctors to give cannabis prescriptions to their patients, in keeping with Health Ministry regulations,” Litzman said at a committee meeting.
Worldwide, doctors are generally only allowed to recommend cannabis instead of formally prescribing it.
Activists in attendance demanded that cannabis become available immediately. “People are dying and suffering [from lack of the drug],” they said. “We have heard grandiose promises, but so far there are no answers. There is plenty of bureaucracy that doesn’t know how to deal with individual cases. There is no transparency in the ministry, and we don’t know how decisions are made on prescriptions.”
Litzman compromised with a 6-month plan to incorporate the newly proposed program. The ministry’s outline for the program includes authorizing pharmacies to sell cannabis. The ministry is also opening up the outline to discussion, by inviting the public to comment.
Currently, only 36 ministry-authorized physicians can prescribe it. “We will supervise it rigorously and make sure that only those who need it for medical reasons will get it. Today, there are 23,000 users of medical marijuana in Israel, compared to 10,000 in Germany,” Litzman explained.
Litzman hopes the measure will stop cultivators from distributing the product. Obtaining permits in order to get cannabis right now in Israel takes months, but the new program should significantly reduce the waiting period. The first stages of the new program is set to roll out in the next few weeks.
