Israel wants to export $1 billion worth of medical cannabis a year

After including medical cannabis in the agricultural sector, Israel should soon begin exporting its medical cannabis. The decision was taken last August by an interministerial committee comprising the Ministers of Health and Finance.

Financial projections put export revenues at between $260 million and over $1 billion. For the moment, the country only exports medical technology for cannabis, but not the plant itself.

Israel is already positioning itself as the leading country for cannabis research and health technologies, attracting international investment (over $100 million last year) in addition to positioning itself as an exporter of medical cannabis. The earliest research dates back to the 1960s, when Professor Raphaël Mechoulam and his team discovered THC.

With the global cannabis market estimated to reach $50 billion by 2025, the Israeli government is opening the floodgates to domestic industry in order to cultivate high-quality, efficient medical cannabis, within an equally reliable production chain, from cultivation to distribution and product processing.

Some 120 studies are currently underway in Israel, including clinical trials on the effects of cannabis on autism, epilepsy, psoriasis and tinnitus. Over 500 Israeli companies have applied for licenses to grow, process or export cannabis-based products.

The country is one of the few to facilitate clinical trials of cannabis on humans. The government also invests heavily in research projects, with nearly $3 million allocated to the sector.

Israel will produce cannabis on its own soil, and has formed partnerships in the USA to grow it there, as the import of cannabis is forbidden on American soil. It will then export its cannabis-based products to Europe, where there is little legal medical production beyond the Netherlands, and South America.