A report which was released last weekend by the Citizens' Empowerment Center in Israel (CECI) confirmed what thousands of Israeli medical cannabis patients have known for years, former health minister Ya'acov Litzman's medical cannabis reform has been an overwhelming failure.
The reform's failure in the export field became especially embarrassing in July of 2020 when it was announced that Israel had overtaken Germany as the largest importer of medical cannabis in the world.
However, while most of the complaints from patients have been related to the reform's failures within the state of Israel, the CECI report details the ways in which Israel went from expecting a bustling international medical cannabis export powerhouse to ending up with the conditions which led Panaxia to become the country's sole cannabis exporter, essentially granting the medical cannabis giant an export monopoly.
The report tracked the goals which the government set in Government Resolution 4490, which aimed at regulating and promoting Israel's medical cannabis export industry, which was expected to add around NIS 4 billion to the state budget and give Israel an early lead in the quickly emerging international market.
The resolution adopted the recommendations from a team that examined the export feasibility of medical cannabis and determined that there are around 7 vital actions that are required in order to properly execute the Government Decision.
Of the seven actionable goals that the government had set for itself, the report found that four of the steps (57%) hadn't been applied at all, two had only partially been applied or unsuccessfully attempted (29%) and only one (14%) had been fully applied as designed.
Section 8 of the resolution — the training of employees to work in medical cannabis supervision and licensing — was not attempted, citing a lack of resources given to the Health Ministry's Medical Cannabis Unit.
Section 11 required the Health Minister to meet with the Public Security Minister to discuss the topic once every six months for the next 4 years. No official meetings or discussions took place in the two years since the resolution passed.
Section 12 required the Health Minister to give an update to the government regarding the status of medical cannabis export licenses before July 20, 2019. No update was published, seeing as, at that point, all Israeli medical cannabis companies except for Panaxia were still over a year away from qualifying for an export license.
Section 13 required an annual report be filed to the government, detailing which actions have so far been taken in the field of enforcement to apply the resolution.
Sections 1 and 10 of the Government Decision were only partially applied.
Section 1 — the granting of medical cannabis licenses — has indeed started a pilot program that allows export if a company meets both the IMC-GMP and EU-GMP standards. Since a regulatory move like that is incredibly expensive and can require years of planning ahead, Panaxia has been the only company allowed to export from Israel.
Section 10 involved the establishment of an inter-ministerial team to examine the many factors required for the purpose of monitoring and enforcement in the field of medical cannabis. While the team did meet twice - most recently in January of this year - no recommendations ever came out of it.
Section 9 of the decision was the only step that the government fully completed: the formation of an inter-ministerial team to examine the necessary steps for branding, licensing and promoting medical cannabis products.
This action was headed by the Economy Ministry, and the team — which met regularly every 4-5 months and included representatives from multiple relevant ministries — recommend the resolution be amended to fix certain legislative problems which are currently blocking many of the decisions from being applied.
In the new coalition's recently drafted Arrangements Bill, a proposal was made to amend Government Resolution 4490 based on the recommendations of the inter-ministerial team.
In addition, the report also found four major problems which hindered the government's ability to apply the resolution.
The resolution didn't specify the amount of funds and resources necessary to carry out the plans detailed within the resolution, or how they would be transferred and distributed.
The coronavirus crisis and the massive change in health priorities harmed the application of the resolution
The lack of a state budget and political turmoil made it more difficult for the different ministries involved to organize and carry out the plans within the resolution.
Lastly, the report found that not enough staff were approved and licensed to apply the plans mentioned within the resolution.