Jul 23, 2008
While the U.S. government was busily denouncing medical marijuana as some sort of "drug legalizer" conspiracy, one of America's closest allies in the world quietly set up a medical marijuana program. Israel's medical marijuana program has gotten virtually no press in the U.S., but this Jerusalem Post article from a few months ago has some of the basics.
Medical marijuana access is restricted to a handful of indications such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, and Crohn's disease, and to patients for whom conventional medicines have failed. This week, Dr. Yehuda Baruch, who runs the program, told me that a total of 222 patients have gotten government approval to use medical marijuana, with 113 actively in the program at present.
Israel, of course, is one of America's closest allies, with both President Bush and Democratic candidate Barack Obama regularly speaking of America's "special relationship" with that small nation. But perhaps Drug Czar John Walters thinks that Israel, too, is part of the conspiracy to "fool" the public into thinking marijuana is medicine.