In a move that should make medical marijuana more easily accessible to patients, the Health Ministry plans to train and authorize 100 additional physicians to dispense prescriptions and licenses, nearly triple the number that are currently authorized to do this. Some 23,000 Israelis have permits to use medical marijuana and it is thought that many thousands more might benefit from it. However, today there are only 36 physicians authorized to issue such permits — 18 belong to the ministry’s medical cannabis unit, while the others are oncologists at various hospitals across the country. Unless one is a cancer patient, receiving a permit is a long drawn out process.
The training of more physicians — which is set to being after the holidays in the fall — is expected to help patients in two ways. First, it broadens the circle of doctors who recognize the effectiveness of medical cannabis and are willing to use it, thus making an ideological statement. Practically, it will save patients a lot of bureaucratic hassle because these doctors will not only be able to prescribe cannabis, but also issue permits for it, something which until now has been done through the Health Ministry.
The ministry is to issue an announcement shortly calling for volunteers to be trained and certified. The announcement will be aimed at doctors in relevant specialties like pain specialists, neurologists and geriatricians. According to the head of the ministry’s medical cannabis unit, Yuval Landschaft, the doctors chosen will be given four weekly training sessions after the fall holidays in four groups of 25 doctors each, to be followed by an exam.
