Pubdate: Mon, 11 Nov 2013
Source: Business Week (US)
Copyright: 2013 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Contact: http://www.businessweek.com/custserv/letters.ed.htm
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Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/753
Author: David Wainer, ISRAEL TAKING TO CANNABIS GROWN AT HOME AS WALL CURBS ARAB HASH

A worker trims cannabis at a growing facility near the northern city of 
Safed, Israel. (Photographer: Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

A few years back Israeli cannabis smokers grappled with the notion
that their drug money often enriched the country's foes. These days,
they're more likely to light up marijuana produced in Tel Aviv
basements or villas outside Jerusalem than hashish smuggled in from
abroad.

"Marijuana has quietly become the main product here," said Daniel
Nahum, a former paratrooper who first noticed the change when he began
smelling pot in bohemian neighborhoods of Jaffa, an ancient port city
south of Tel Aviv.

The shift in Israel's cannabis supply is an unintended effect of
tighter border security. While Israelis long smoked hash from
neighboring Arab countries, a new fence and more vigilance on the
borders have thwarted shipments. In response, Israeli dealers are
increasingly growing their own.

"While we are successfully foiling attempts to smuggle hash, we are
also noticing a spike in seizures of home operations," said police
spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld.

A surge in African migrants entering the country from the Sinai desert
spurred Israel to build a 230-kilometer (143-mile) fence along the
border. The six-meter-high barrier, topped with barbed wire, was
completed in January after two years of construction. Stronger patrols
after the second Lebanon war in 2006 and the civil strife in Syria had
already restricted supplies from the north.

"From a public interest standpoint, this is a positive development,"
said Boaz Wachtel, founder of Alei Yarok, or the Green Leaf Party, and
a key figure in bringing medicinal cannabis to the country. "The stuff
grown inside Israel is of higher quality. Some hash coming in from
Lebanon was just clay mixed with sap." Even better, Wachtel says: Drug
money is no longer going to places "that shoot missiles at us."

Never Inhaled

The changes come as the debate over marijuana intensifies in Israel.
Finance Minister Yair Lapid, a journalist who became a politician,
drew media scrutiny earlier this year when he denied ever smoking pot.
Israelis were skeptical that the former model and actor, dubbed by the
Haaretz daily the "prom king politician," had never inhaled.

A barrage of anecdotes from people claiming to have shared a joint
with Lapid didn't help his credibility. One rival, 53-year-old Shelly
Yachimovich, who heads the Labor party, last month seized the
initiative by saying she had smoked pot.

Medical marijuana is tightly controlled in Israel, where scientists
have led global advances in understanding the health benefits of the
plant. About 9,000 patients suffering from diseases such as cancer and
multiple sclerosis are using the drug. Three quarters of Israelis
believe marijuana has legitimate medical uses, according to a survey
commissioned by the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies.

Cheaper Hash

The dwindling supply of cheaper hash from Arab countries is costing
Israeli smokers. Black market marijuana has risen to about 100 shekels
($28) per gram from 70 shekels three years ago, said Wachtel. That's
about four times what medium-quality pot costs in California,
according to priceofweed.com, which collects anonymous reports.

Moshe Feiglin, a Knesset member from the leading Likud party, is
pushing to make it easier for doctors to prescribe medical marijuana.
He last year penned an op-ed in the Yediot Aharonot daily titled "God
Owns Cannabis Patent."

"The vision is that from age 21 every Israeli citizen will be able to
go to a pharmacy and buy cannabis under very strict regulation,"
Feiglin said in an interview. "This might be good for our economy and
would help improve the quality of the medicine, but for me this is
above all about liberty."

Economic Benefit

Attitudes toward recreational use are more conservative than in the
U.S. Only 15 percent of Israelis say they've used marijuana and 26
percent support legalization of the drug, according to the Institute
for Market Studies. That compares with 52 percent support for
legalization in the U.S., according to a March survey by the Pew
Research Center. In a report, the Market Studies institute said
legalizing marijuana would generate $452 million in annual economic
benefit from taxes and law enforcement savings.

"Recognizing the enormous financial gains that would come from
legalization demands that the government take a serious look" at the
idea, said Yarden Gazit, a research fellow at the Institute and
co-author of the report.

In the meantime, Israeli growers are sprouting to feed the black
market, estimated at $700 million a year, according to the Market
Studies institute. A decade ago about 70 percent of Israeli cannabis
came through Egypt and Lebanon, Wachtel estimates. These days less
than a third comes from those two countries and Jordan, and the rest
is local.

Militant Groups

Though the exact organizations that benefit from the hashish trade are
not known, attacks on Israel from militant groups operating in the
Sinai area have intensified in recent years. In Lebanon, cannabis is
grown in the fertile Bekaa Valley, a stronghold of the anti-Israeli
Hezbollah.

Nahum, the former paratrooper, says that while the price has gone up,
his pot-smoking buddies don't complain too much because the quality
has improved.

"I had been telling my friends not to smoke hash coming from Arab
countries already before the marijuana market began booming in
Israel," Nahum said. "The hash they were buying was coming from groups
that often have an anti-Israel agenda, and no one knows what went into
it."
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