Israel will extend cannabis licenses until December due to the pandemic

Israel’s government has announced that it will extend all medical cannabis licenses, for both patients and practitioners, until December 2020. This decision is in response to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has forced the reintroduction of lockdowns across the country. This action is an emergency decision, and further information will be available at a future date.

Israel’s cannabis licenses for patients and practitioners who currently work in the industry, which are due to expire in September, October and November, will be extended until December due to the lockdowns that will be put in place with the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Knesset’s Constitution Committee approved the request by MK Yoav Kisch, the Deputy Health Minister, a short time ago to extend the validity of the regulatory cannabis licenses during the Coronavirus crisis that the country is going through. This includes a further automatic extension, until the end of December 2020, of all medical cannabis licenses across the country, for both patients currently in treatment and practitioners.

This is the third extension given this year. The first was granted in March following the initial outbreak of the Coronavirus disease, with a second following in July, which extended cannabis license validity until the end of September. 

Now, the licenses, which help patients acquire their products, are being extended for the third time in order to help thousands of cannabis patients that are in need of cannabis to continue their treatments.

If you want to know more about cannabis, how Israel is extending the validity of all cannabis licenses related to patients and practitioners across the country, and to find out the latest cannabis news, download the Hemp.im mobile application.

Cannabis licenses will be extended for another three months

According to the mechanism approved today, licenses that expire in September will be automatically extended for another three months, until December. Approvals that expire in October or November will be automatically extended for another ten weeks.

Also, approvals that expire in July and August will be extended for another two weeks so that they “complete” an extension of three months.

In order to receive the additional prescriptions for the duration of the extension, a photocopy of the medical cannabis license must be sent to the HQR’s email address, requesting a renewal/extension of the license. 

In the case of patients suffering from PTSD, all medical documents should be attached, including the recommendation of an attending physician.

Patients who wish to increase their dose of cannabis, or change their method of consumption for their specific treatments, will have to attach a specific request and wait for an examination by one of the doctors assigned to this task. In this case, a certificate from an attending physician must be attached to the application if possible.

One thing that patients should keep in mind is that these are only emergency guidelines, taken mainly due to the coronavirus pandemic crisis that’s sweeping through Israel. These will be updated when a change occurs so that anyone whose cannabis license is about to expire in the coming months should be urged to do so soon.

At the same time, in the middle of this pandemic, the Israeli Ministry of Health announced that it recognizes the medical cannabis industry as an “essential service” under the “emergency farm” regulations – meaning that activity in the industry will continue as usual in the event of a lockdown, similar to the pharmaceutical industry.

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(Featured image by National Cancer Institute via Unsplash)

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First published in קנאביס, a third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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