The Medical Cannabis Agency of Israel has unveiled the transitional guidelines for six months period for approving exports of medical cannabis which will be based on case-by-case criteria provided that the patient demand can be met by the local supplies.
The agency laid out the new guidelines in their letter to the medical marijuana businesses. It has been stipulated in the letter received by the Marijuana Business Daily that they will not allow for exports till the patients are assured with adequate supply in local markets. As per the letter the guidelines will end on the 18 of May 2020. By the end of six months, decision about the extension of the guidelines, if it should be adopted as permanent or if it be scrapped off will be taken by the Health Ministry.
TechForCann’s CEO, Lilac Mandeles, said that this will turn out to be a positive sign for the cannabis industry in Israel as they had been waiting for the regulations since the passing of the law approving the exports of medical marijuana the previous year. The major things addressed in the guidelines are lab tests to be conducted during growing-production process, quantity of cannabis to be grown in the validation period, out of farm-site post-harvest processing, giving approval to specific batches for their exports and medical cannabis’s local supply ahead of the export approval.
There are nearly 46,000 patients registered in the country who have faced problems of product consistency and quality. Due to this the ministry has said that only if the patients are assured with adequate supply, the shipments would be approved. The guidelines have stipulated that the approval of specific batches by the Ministry of Health will consider the local availability, price, variety and supply. In order to facilitate production and cultivation, the guidelines have addressed testing in the transition period. It has been specified by the guidelines that all the tests to get the IMC-GAP certificate should be performed at the cultivation farms during the initial validation stage. The test will involve the checking of concentration and quantity of active materials, foreign substances, heavy metals, pesticides, toxins and microbial entities.
The Medical Cannabis Agency has said that if they do not pass the validation tests and fail to obtain the IMC-GAP certificate, then the validation crops as well as crops grown parallel to these should be destroyed.