A decade after Israel opened the door to medical cannabis with the stated goal of easing patients' suffering and integrating it as a therapeutic tool, the country finds itself in a very different place: one of the world's most active and expansive cannabis markets, with features that resemble a loosely regulated consumer market more than a health care system.
The Health Ministry identified the developments in real time and decided to act. The recommendations of the committee examining trends in cannabis treatment, headed by Dr. Gilad Bodenheimer, head of the ministry's mental health division, were submitted to Director General Moshe Bar Siman-Tov. At their center is a phased ban on smokable cannabis within three years.
This is not a technical update. It is a fundamental change in approach and an explicit attempt to "hit the brakes" on a worsening trend. The recommendations touch on a wide range of areas, but the central message is clear: The medicalization process launched in 2016, and still viewed skeptically by senior ministry officials, has lost direction.
The numbers make that clear. According to New Frontier Data's 2025 global report, more than a quarter of Israelis ages 15 and older, 27%, reported using cannabis with a high THC concentration. THC is the main psychoactive compound in cannabis. That is the highest rate in the world, above Canada, the United States and Jamaica.
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