Israel holds the distinction of having the most advanced medical cannabis program in the world. Over there, testing for the different medical uses of the plant is much easier and encounters less legal hurdles than many other nations. In fact, their cannabis program has been in place for decades now.

For this reason, researchers from all over are flocking to the country to explore the possibilities of cannabis-as well as to create a regional hub from where medical cannabis products can be distributed. Foreign interest in Israel and cannabis go far wider than just the usual growing, importing, and exporting issues.

Just over two weeks ago, cannabis oil capsules by a US company, Cannabics Pharmaceuticals, were made available to registered patients in Israel, PR Newswire reported. Syqe Medical, on their end, developed a precision metered dose inhaler that might be the next generation method of administering cannabis. And lastly, BreedIt is providing advanced agro-breeding tech to Israel.

"Israel is playing a large role in clinical trials and foreign governments and multinationals come to Israel for this purpose. In the US, the DEA does not allow for the transportation of raw materials. A company in New York cannot import enough raw cannabis to conduct the clinical trials," said Dr. Tamir Gedo, CEO of Breath of Life, a company that manufactures pharmacy grade API for companies looking to conduct clinical trials.

Currently, Israel has the most patients of medical marijuana, Techcrunch reported. Over 22,000 patients regularly get treatments derived from cannabis and the trend is on the rise. The Ministry of Health, the only equivalent of the FDA in Israel, has approved the use of cannabis to treat a whole number of ailments already, including cancer, epilepsy, and neurological conditions.

While this progress in medical marijuana in Israel is clearly light years away from other nations' own medical marijuana programs, they are not without problems. At the moment, only 30 doctors are licensed to prescribe cannabis medicine and give out licenses.

But that is not the problem. Pain clinics, from which patients get their permits and extensions on dosages, are starting to close their doors to patients, Y Net News reported. There has been a noticeable trend recently that hospitals are starting to shy away from their old prescriptions of cannabis.

Why this is the case is not the issue here, as there are many political reasons for it, but the reality for patients who have endured terrible pain before, and whose conditions were alleviated by medical cannabis, are being thrown back to the Dark Ages for reasons that seem outright absurd.