Pubdate: Fri, 24 Oct 2008
Source: Jewish Advocate, The (MA)
Copyright: 2008 The Jewish Advocate.
Contact:  http://www.thejewishadvocate.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4016
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)

ISRAEL'S POLITICAL PARTY OF POT PRESSES ON

This fall, Massachusetts voters will have the opportunity to vote for 
or against Question 2, an initiative that would decriminalize the 
possession of less than an ounce of marijuana. But in Israel, 
reforming marijuana laws goes beyond ballot initiatives and is the 
foundation of the Ale Yarok (Hebrew for "green leaf") party.

Boaz Wachtel, 50, paid the required 13,000 shekels and collected 100 
signatures to found the Ale Yarok party in 1999. A former assistant 
army attache at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., Wachtel 
earned his master's degree in management and marketing from Maryland 
University.

In his role as party chairman, Wachtel served as a pioneer in Israeli 
drug law reform. He helped initiate a medicinal cannabis program and 
served as a public representative in a Knesset study on the legal 
status of the herb in Israel.

"A few activists are trying to change Israeli drug laws, which are 
extremely similar, and identically disastrous as U.S. drug policy," 
Wachtel said. "We've had some successes and we've had some failures."

Wachtel stepped down as Ale Yarok's leader in 2006 and was replaced 
by then-27-year-old Ohad Shesm Tov, the youngest chairman of any 
political party since the establishment of Israel. The party 
continues to press for drug policy reform in the Jewish State, where 
penalties are lenient but marijuana is still illegal.

The implications of Ale Yarok's name are clear, though Wachtel said 
the media has unfairly pigeonholed the party as being strictly 
pro-marijuana and apathetic to other issues. At the forefront of the 
topics Ale Yarok concerns itself with, he said, are drug policy 
reform, civil rights and peace policy reform.

The party has sought representation in the Knesset since their 
inception. During their first two runs in 1999 and 2003, the group 
barely missed the 1.5 percent threshold for the Knesset by getting 1 
percent of the vote in their first campaign, and 1.2 percent in the 
next. In 2006, they received 1.3 percent of the vote, but the 
threshold that year was raised to 2 percent. With another possible 
hike of the threshold looming, Wachtel questioned the Knesset's 
reasoning for constantly raising the requirements for representation. 
But he remained hopeful for the party's future.

"Israelis are so tired and sick of politics and the politicians that 
they would vote for something completely new, such as Ale Yarok," he said.

News Hawk: User: http://www.420magazine.com/ Source: the Jewish 
Advocate Author: Vladimir Shvorin Copyright: 2008 the Jewish Advocate 
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