Legalising cannabis: Israel to be the epicentre of world cannabis industry; exporting technology main focus

There is a lot happening at the medical cannabis front. One of the unlikeliest of countries, Israel, is all set to establish itself as the tech hub of the rising marijuana global trade. Cannabis innovation was at the centre of the second annual CannaTech conference, held from March 7-9.

Scientists, academics, start-ups and entrepreneurs, everybody gathered at the conference. Israel’s industry has seen a spur in growth after attitudes changed towards marijuana in countries such as the US. Even conservative rabbis have given the green signal on medical marijuana use.

Israel’s Health Ministry is also looking to remove the morality quotient attached to the cannabis plant. Israel will soon become the world’s premier hub for marijuana technology.

“I’m not sure that my people, my voters are so happy about what I did,” Health Minister and ultra-orthodox Rabbi Yaakov Litzman told CNN.

Numerous companies, including start-ups, have already become popular for coming up with innovative products. Syqe Medical has developed a metered inhaler that can control cannabis doses. It gathered $26 million investment from tobacco giant Philip Morris.

Similarly, another company called Eybna has been successful in developing marijuana tailored strains to target specific ailments. Companies such as Kalytera are also in the process of developing medicines that can treat various diseases like osteoporosis by using cannabis to synthesise chemical compounds.

Medical marijuana grower Tikkun Olam, which means “Healing the World” in Hebrew, has successfully developed a plant that does not make takers high. This means doing away with the possible negative psychoactive effects of marijuana. They have also developed a strain that supposedly had the highest level of THC ever grown.

According to News.com.au, Israel has seen a spurt in cases in the past decade where cannabis has been used to treat a number of ailments. The use of marijuana was non-existent in 2005. However, last year, 23,000 people were treated with it.

Israel is pushing so much for innovation in the medical cannabis sector as it wants to export their technology to profit-making US market that is about to reach US$100 billion (AU$126 billion) by 2029.

“It could be a business of hundreds of millions of dollars to Israel,” said Tikun Olam CEO Aharon Lutzky.