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A few months ago, I wrote a post entitled, “Israel: Cannabis Powerhouse“. That post
noted how Israel has been at the forefront of cannabis for decades.
Namely, it was one of the pioneers of cannabis research, an early
adopter of medical cannabis, and one of the few countries that has
embraced of medical cannabis imports and exports (for example,
Israel recently exported medical cannabis to
Australia). Nevertheless, Israel still lags behind countries like
Canada that have legalized cannabis for recreational purposes. But
that’s changing.

As I noted in the above post back in the summer, there had been
a preliminary vote in Israel’s Knesset (i.e., its parliament)
to push towards a national recreational cannabis market. At the
time, this was a huge step toward a legal recreational market. But
it ultimately didn’t advance the ball that much until more
recently.

In November 2020, Israel announced that it was moving forward with
a plan to legalize recreational cannabis nationally. The country is
aiming to implement recreational legalization within nine months,
and even if there are delays, that means mid-to-late
2021. There’s still a ways to go and more hearings will be
held this month.

Israel is reportedly modeling its recreational
cannabis law on Canada’s federal laws and will allow sales to
persons over 21 years of age, but unlike Canada and many U.S.
states, it will not allow home grows (for now, at least). The
legislation would also reportedly reform existing medical
cannabis laws and decriminalize possession of larger amounts of
cannabis.

A legal recreational market in Israel will be extremely
significant. Only a very small handful of other countries have
legalized cannabis at the federal level, and other countries are
actively resisting recreational legalization, like Germany. Considering the fact that Israel
has already embraced imports and exports
of medical cannabis, this means it will be
lightyears ahead of countries like the United States, which is
still struggling to get to federal legalization.

Israel’s recreational cannabis laws have a ways to go, so
stay tuned to the Canna Law Blog for more updates.

Israel May Soon Legalize Recreational Cannabis

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