Marijuana legalization has been a political issue in the United States for some time, and while it remains illegal in most states, others have softened their stance in recent years. Colorado and Washington both passed initiatives by popular vote to decriminalize and legalize cannabis in 2012. In 2014, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C., followed suit. Many states including Massachusetts, California, Missouri, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada and Ohio have flirted with legalization for a few election cycles, with buzz growing.

The United States isn't the only country where people use marijuana legally or illicitly. In fact, it isn’t even the country with the highest reported marijuana use.

The long-term, daily use of cannabis is associated with improved analgesia and reduced opioid use in patients with treatment-resistant chronic pain conditions, according to clinical trial data reported online ahead of print in The Clinical Journal of Pain.

Investigators with Hebrew University in Israel evaluated the use of cannabis on pain in a cohort of 176 patients, each of whom had been previously unresponsive to all conventional pain medications. Subjects inhaled THC-dominant cannabis daily (up to 20 grams per month) for a period of at least six months. 

Spark-Up Nation has a pretty good ring to it, don’t you think? Saul Kaye, the CEO of iCAN, certainly does.

For Kaye, whose company is holding its second annual CannTech conference on cannabis in Israel next month, the Jewish state is fertile ground for growing a cannabis economy.

“Israel is leading the world in research and development, from the medical side to the medical devices to the agro side,” he told The Jerusalem Post in the company’s co-working space in Beit Shemesh.

Indeed, Israel has been a leader in cannabis research.

Compared to the United States, where heavy regulation prohibits many forms of marijuana- related research, Israel’s regulatory framework has been somewhat more relaxed.

If you really need it, and nothing else is available, medical marijuana probably does not need kashrut certification, confirms Rabbi Moshe Elefant, chief operating officer of the Orthodox Union's Kashruth Department.

This January, the OU gained the distinction of becoming the first kashruth organization to certify medical marijuana, produced by the company Vireo Health, causing some eyebrows to rise, on a number of grounds.

One is that medicine shouldn't require kashrut certification, should it? Asking this question led to a moment of pilpul-lite on the definition of "medicine."

A standing-room-only crowd of venture capitalists and angels, agricultural technology investors and innovators, medical doctors, medical cannabis researchers and licensed growers came to Jaffa last week for Israel’s firstCanna Tech conference.

Currently, medical marijuana users are prohibited from driving at all and in some cases have had their licenses revoked.

Knesset Members debated on Tuesday whether to amend a law so as to permit those using cannabis for medical reasons to keep their drivers licenses.

Currently, medical marijuana users are prohibited from driving at all and in some cases have had their licenses revoked.

At the Special Committee on Drug and Alcohol Abuse chaired by Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg who has publicly admitted to occasionally smoking marijuana. gave its backing to the opinion of the Health Ministry’s Medical Institute for Road Safety last month that medical marijuana use is similar to other types of prescription medication.

In a Ger-Hasidic convention, MK LIitzman discussed his cannabis reform, child allowance fund.

Health Minister MK Yaakov Litzman (United Torah Judaism) attended a Ger-Hasidic convention in Jerusalem on Sunday where he discussed his Cannabis Reform and clarified he does not intend to distribute marijuana to everyone who requests.

"I was given 40 kinds of herbs, to familiarize with them," said the Health Minister. "I am being pressured to allow cultivation of cannabis, but it will not happen. They say I am a liberal, but just the opposite - I am only worried about supplying to those who truly need it and make it easier for them to acquire."

The administration of cannabis oil extracts high in cannabidiol reduces seizure frequency in children with intractable epilepsy, according to clinical data published online ahead of print in the journal Seizure.

Israeli researchers retrospectively evaluated the effects of CBD oil in a multicenter cohort of 74 patients with intractable epilepsy. Participants in the trial were resistant to conventional epilepsy treatment and were treated with CBD extracts for a period of at least three months. Extracts in the study were provided by a pair of Israeli-licensed growers and were standardized to possess a CBD to THC ratio of 20 to 1.

Members of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), KOPAC and Dioscorides Global Holdings (DGH) were joined by the Minister of Health for the Czech Republic recently to announce the establishment of a new research center, the International Cannabis and Cannabinoid Institute (ICCI) – intended to foster evidence-based exploration with a modern scientific approach to refine the therapeutic applicability of cannabis-based medicines in the Czech Republic. ICCI will identify, coordinate and support global research priorities for the advancement of cannabis and cannabinoid treatments through a multidisciplinary evidence based approach that incorporates innovative tools and approaches.