The cause of marijuana legalization received a boost from an unlikely source on Wednesday, when Israel Police Insp.-Gen. Yohanan Danino said it is time for the government and police to reexamine their policies on the use of cannabis and study how other countries were dealing with the matter. "I think the time has come for the Israel Police, together with the state, to reexamine their stance on cannabis. I think we must sit and study what's happening around the world," he said. [continues 860 words]
Pledge of Legal Marijuana Present Nets Party Nis 100,000 in Donations A promise of marijuana in the future in exchange for campaign donations today helped the Aleh Yarok ("Green Leaf") party net more than NIS 100,000 in donations this week. The campaign, launched in a YouTube video on Saturday, promises donors who front it campaign donations that they will receive marijuana if and when the day comes that the plant is legalized in Israel. On Monday morning, the party opened a Headstart Web fund-raising campaign with a range of options for donors. The Web page includes a sliding scale of theoretical marijuana in exchange for contributions. At the lowest end, an NIS 50 donation entitles the donor to a savings bond redeemable for a single gram of marijuana once it's legalized. The bond, which features a marijuana flower on it, costs significantly less than the street value of a gram of marijuana in Israel (NIS 80-100), and by Wednesday the 56 spots available for that donation had all been purchased. [continues 321 words]
Legalization of marijuana could be a gold mine for the state coffers, bringing in as much as NIS 1.6 billion in annual tax revenues and savings for law enforcement. It would save police and the courts some NIS 690m. in annual costs, and bring the state NIS 950m. in tax revenue, according to a study released on Wednesday by the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies. Each year there are more than 18,000 criminal cases 5.2 percent of the total involving marijuana, over 70% of them involving amounts that are for "personal use," the researchers said. Furthermore, some 5.4% of prison inmates are serving time for marijuana-related charges. [continues 246 words]
Police say they suspect that a significant amount of marijuana was given to criminal organizations that had acquired fake prescriptions. Dozens of disabled and terminally ill people protested outside a Tel Aviv medical marijuana clinic on Sunday, in response to recent police actions against the facility. The protest came four days after police raided a storefront on Rehov Ibn Gvirol run by Tikkun Olam, where patients would come to get their doses. Police arrested two managers of the storefront and held them for questioning for several hours, on suspicion of illegal drug trafficking. [continues 413 words]
Police raided Tikkun Olam clinic, reportedly preventing patients from receiving monthly medical cannabis doses. Police on Wednesday raided the Tel Aviv offices of a medical marijuana supplier and arrested two managers suspected of drug trafficking. The raids took place in the morning at the Tikkun Olam clinic in north Tel Aviv, as well as a nearby storefront operated by the organization, where the 2,000 patients who they supply with medical marijuana each month come to receive their cannabis. On Wednesday afternoon, the storefront was shuttered and a note outside told patients that they would not be able to receive their doses for the time being. [continues 322 words]