Pubdate: Mon, 02 Feb 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Anne- Marie O'Connor

MEDICAL MARIJUANA WITHOUT THE HIGH

Israel Is at Forefront of Research, but Export of Plant Doesn't 
Appear to Be on the Horizon

Safed, Israel - In a greenhouse in the mountains of the Galilee, a 
technician in a lab coat is coddling a marijuana seedling that is 
coveted for life-saving medical benefits for epileptic children, 
doctors say - without the high.

Named "Rafael," for a healing angel called upon by Moses, this 
varietal of cannabis is for people who don't want to be under the 
influence, and it is available in oral doses in Israel.

Israel has become a world leader in science on the medical uses of 
marijuana, and its producers could become major exporters of medical 
cannabis, experts say. But so far, the government has allowed them to 
export only their knowledge - not the actual product.

Michael Dor, the senior medical adviser in the Israeli Health 
Ministry's cannabis unit, said that in ongoing government talks, 
agricultural officials support the export of Israeli medical 
cannabis, but top officials in the police force, army and executive 
branch oppose it. Exports face stringent international legal 
requirements, Dor said, adding that those officials "don't want 
Israel to be seen all over the world as a country that exports 
weapons and cannabis."

Even without being exported, Israel's medical cannabis research and 
development is drawing global interest. PhytoTech Medical, an 
Australian medical cannabis venture that just raised $6 million in a 
public offering, announced a deal last week with Yissum, the 
technology transfer arm of Jerusalem's Hebrew University, to develop 
precisely dosed pills for the mainstream pharmaceutical market.

On Thursday, Israeli producers will hold a Jaffa investors 
conference, called Canna Tech Israel. It will feature Colorado doctor 
Alan Shackelford, whose patient Charlotte Figi experienced a dramatic 
decrease in her severe epileptic seizures after being treated with a 
medical cannabis, dubbed "Charlotte's Web," triggering a wave of 
American interest in the medical potential of marijuana.

"Israel is a bastion of cannabis research," said Shackelford, who is 
now the chief science officer for One World Cannabis, publicly traded 
as OWC Pharmaceuticals.

Another participant, Syqe Medical, has developed a metereddose 
cannabis inhaler - with the help of a $1 million state grant.

"It could be huge," said Aharon Lutzky, the chief executive of Tikun 
Olam, a leading medical cannabis producer whose Galilee greenhouses 
spawned Rafael and other strains. "There is demand all over the world."

A recent headline in the Israeli English-language newspaper Haaretz 
asked, "Can Israel Lead the World in Weed?"

For now, the inability to export is setting limits on the industry's 
ambitions. When the health minister from the Czech Republic visited 
last year, he was unable to get a deal to import Israeli cannabis.

If Israel does not export, there is a risk that "the knowledge will 
leak outside Israel, and the knowledge is worth a lot of money," Dor 
said. "We would like to stay in the forefront."

A government spokesman declined to comment on the export restrictions.

"Israel is truly at the forefront of medical marijuana," said Ethan 
Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance in Washington. "Why would 
Israel want to forgo its leadership?"

'It's so exciting'

Several American states are pushing ahead with marijuana legalization 
for medicinal and recreational use, but U.S. laws make clinical 
research difficult or impossible. Israel, on the other hand, began 
cannabis research 50 years ago and studies its medical uses in a 
growing public-health program, although it has not legalized recreational use.

Shackelford, a Harvard-trained physician, said he is conducting 
research in Israel after seeing U.S. drug laws block clinical 
studies, even into promising applications for illnesses, such as ALS, 
that conventional medicine cannot help.

This year, he will lead studies in Israel on pain, skin disorders, 
seizure disorders, several types of cancers, migraine headaches and 
post-traumatic stress disorder.

"I went to Israel because I was frustrated," he said. "Israel is the 
one place in the world that combines the scientific expertise, 
world-class universities and scientists. It's so exciting."

Israel first approved medical cannabis for a patient in 1992, for 
severe asthma. In 2007, the Health Ministry implemented a 
comprehensive medical cannabis program, and now 20,000 patients are 
permitted to use cannabis - a number expected to rise to 30,000 by 2016.

Israeli doctors use it to treat ailments including Crohn's disease, 
basal cell carcinoma, psoriasis, Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis and 
PTSD in Israeli military veterans, and the pain of cancer patients 
and the elderly. Its doses are available in cookies, caramels, 
chocolates, oils, and leaf form for smoking or vaporizing.

One of Canada's leading producers, MedReleaf, is tapping Israel's 
expertise, in a partnership it signed in May 2014 with Tikun Olam, 
whose name means "Healing the World" in Hebrew.

MedReleaf now produces strains including the non-intoxicating 
varieties, with high concentrations of cannabidiol, or CBD - a 
powerful anti-inflammatory with no narcotic effect - and low 
tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which creates the "high" typically 
associated with marijuana.

"Tikun Olam shares their 10 years of data, so we can say, 'Our 
Israeli partner has treated 817 patients with Crohn's or colitis or 
Alzheimer's, and they know that this variety, with this dosage, is 
the optimum,' " said Neil J. Closer, the chief executive of MedReleaf.

'Promising' results

For the past year, Dor has collected clinical data from Israeli 
doctors, hospitals and universities to develop national cannabis 
treatment guidelines, which he said he has shared with the Jamaican 
health ministry, among other interested parties.

One contributor was Timna Naftali, a gastroenterologist at Meir 
Hospital, who said she was skeptical in 2011 when she prescribed 
cannabis to 30 patients with Crohn's disease.

But "the results were dramatic," she said. "They didn't need steroids 
or surgery or hospitalization."

Neurologists who have been monitoring 67 children with intractable 
epilepsy at four medical centers reported "promising" results last 
week at an epilepsy conference in Tel Aviv.

Avigael Ka'atabi said her 15year-old epileptic son, Eden, once 
suffered continual seizures so severe that he needed a helmet. After 
Eden's neurologist prescribed cannabis oil in May, his seizures 
dropped by half, she said.

"It's like a whole new life for us," Ka'atabi said at a Tel Aviv clinic.

Researcher Ruth Gallily, a professor emerita of Hebrew University, 
said there also are indications that cannabis can lower the incidence 
of diabetes and can reduce permanent damage following heart attacks.

"In the right hands, it could really help a lot of people," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom