Pubdate: Fri, 18 Oct 2013
Source: Jerusalem Post (Israel)
Copyright: 2013 The Jerusalem Post
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Website: http://www.jpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/516
Author: Judy Siegel

ISRAEL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION CHAIRMAN DENOUNCES MARIJUANA BILL

The Israel Medical Association voiced strong opposition to a private 
members' bill that would allow every physician, including general 
practitioners, to give patients prescriptions for medical cannabis.

IMA chairman Dr. Leonid Eidelman sent a letter on Thursday to Justice 
Minister Tzipi Livni about the bill, due to be discussed in the 
Ministerial Committee for Legislation on Sunday. The bill was 
introduced by Likud MKs Haim Katz and Moshe Feiglin.

In his letter, Eidelman said that marijuana is registered by the 
state as a "dangerous drug," illegal to possess and use except for 
specific medical uses in seriously ill patients. A license to consume 
it is given only when no other treatment has been helpful. Only a 
small number of medical experts today are allowed to prescribe it, 
due to the risk that it will reach the hands of non-patients for 
"recreational uses."

Current medical knowledge has not yet made it possible to expand the 
authority to all physicians to prescribe medical marijuana, the IMA 
chairman said. "In the medical literature as well, there is an 
argument whether it should even be considered a drug. There is no 
clear standardization about the dosage, concentration and type of 
drug delivery suitable for medical marijuana."

In addition, Eidelman said, cannabis is not registered in the Health 
Ministry as a drug, and its efficacy and safety for most medical uses 
are as yet unproven.

The bill, Eidelman wrote, involves individual general practitioners, 
who will be forced to cope with patient demands for its use as a 
"magic medicine" to replace all other medications, which is not correct.

"We often hear of family doctors who are threatened with verbal and 
even physical violence if they do not prescribe medical marijuana," 
he said. "This situation is insufferable, and the bill will only make 
it worse. This proposal will produce a dangerous jump and turn 
medical marijuana into an accessible product that could endanger the 
public, who would not receive better and more suitable treatment, and 
it would put patients as well as doctors at risk."
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