Health Minister Chaim Katz froze all recommendations of a professional commission on medical cannabis published last Sunday, most notably the recommendation to ban the sale of cannabis in smokable form in three years.
“I am not sufficiently convinced that implementation of the recommendations is justified given the possible harm to patients. As someone who has regulated this area in Israel, I have seen up close the suffering of patients who had to go through the thorns before receiving a prescription for medical cannabis, which ultimately turned out to be the only remedy that relieved their pain. Even if stricter control on related issues is necessary, complicating the procedure and limiting the use of medical cannabis is not the way,” Katz said.
The commission, led by the head of the department of mental health at the Ministry of Health, Dr Gilad Bodenheimer, worked for almost a year and a half and, according to it, consulted with all stakeholders, including patient groups.
The commission was created in response to calls from a number of psychiatrists who argued that the use of medical cannabis in Israel causes health problems and addiction, while its benefits are not sufficiently proven, especially in relation to the treatment of PTSD, which became much more common after the war.
Patients with PTSD make up about 15% of all medical cannabis users in Israel – about 20 thousand people. The most common indication is the treatment of pain.
The commission pointed out that the shape of the inflorescences – today the main method of consuming cannabis in Israel – does not allow for precise dosing of the drug, and smoking itself is problematic from a public health point of view and is more suitable for recreational rather than medical use.