As hundreds of medical professionals, farmers, patients and cannabis activists descend on Israel this week for the Cann10 International Medical Conference from September 11 to 13, Israeli scientists are plowing ahead with new clinical trials in order to approve cannabis use for a wider variety of diseases.

When Yossi Feuchtwanger, 68, needs to refill the medication that controls his severe neurological pain, he heads to the Tel Aviv-based medical marijuana distribution center run by Tikun Olam, the Israeli company that produces and sells several strains of medical cannabis.

“I smoke it, and after just two inhalations I’m in much less pain,” Feuchtwanger said as he sat in the waiting room of Tikun Olam’s nurses’ clinic where he and many of the 25,000 Israelis who hold permits to use medical cannabis come for evaluations.

Feuchtwanger, who was able to put away his crutches soon after he began taking medical cannabis more than a year ago, experienced an unexpected side benefit.

The Israeli biomed group's incubator will provide startups with mentoring and consultation, and help them find investors.

Shizim Group, managed by CEO Yossi Bornstein, which comprises more than ten biomed companies, has launched the Cann10 incubator for medical cannabis companies. The incubator will not directly invest in companies, but will provide them with mentoring and consultation, and help them find relevant investors.

After some success in using substance to treat epileptics, researchers to check effect of cannabis oils on individuals with severe behavioral problems.

Evidence that cannabinoids can help improve the quality of life of autistic people has, until now, been anecdotal. Now an Israeli doctor is launching a formal clinical trial of “medical cannabis” among autistic children and teenagers – the first of its type.

Dr. Adi Eran, who is heading up the endeavor, is in the process of obtaining permits from the Health Ministry for the study, which will involve 120 autistic individuals, male and female, aged 4 to 30, who are defined as low to medium functioning.

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel on Sunday announced that Israel would begin exporting medical marijuana abroad, weeks after the government approved measures to make medical cannabis more easily accessible to patients in Israel.

“In two years we will have protocols in place that will allow farmers to grow cannabis,” Ariel told Israel Radio over the weekend, according to Israel’s online Hebrew-language magazine Cannabis.

“The Agriculture Ministry has set up specific areas for the research and trial of growing cannabis, a plant whose foremost use is the medical treatment of patients around the world,” he said.

Ariel said he intends to approve the request for exporting Israeli-grown medical marijuana abroad.

"Instead of growing peppers in the Arava, people will grow cannabis."

Behind closed doors somewhere in the recesses of the Israeli government’s Agricultural Research Organization, Dr. Nirit Bernstein has been working for the past three years to perfect cannabis cultivation practices.

“It’s difficult to be a cannabis researcher. It’s much easier to be a tomato or citrus researcher,” she told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “We are dealing with an illegal drug. Even though we are growing cannabis for medicinal purposes, it is still by definition an illegal drug.”

Alleges Israel’s medicinal pot is misrepresented and contaminated.

A medical marijuana patient whose license to grow his own cannabis was revoked in 2013, has filed a lawsuit against Israel’s health ministry for providing him with plants tainted by dangerous pesticides which are illegal for human consumption.

“Patient R” is one of only a dozen Israelis who have been issued permits to grow his own plants, and is the only patient involved in the lawsuit.

Cannabis cultivation need not be disorganized or dirty. And yes, this gives a whole new meaning to a “seed round.”

While public opinion in Israel and worldwide is divided about the legalization of marijuana, the technological experts are not waiting. Even the almighty Microsoft is already involved.  Leaf, a startup developing an automated system for cannabis cultivation, announced a $2 million seed (pun intended) funding round on Sunday.

100 more doctors to be authorized to issue licenses and prescriptions to patients in need.

In a move that should make medical marijuana more easily accessible to patients, the Health Ministry plans to train and authorize 100 additional physicians to dispense prescriptions and licenses, nearly triple the number that are currently authorized to do this. Some 23,000 Israelis have permits to use medical marijuana and it is thought that many thousands more might benefit from it. However, today there are only 36 physicians authorized to issue such permits — 18 belong to the ministry’s medical cannabis unit, while the others are oncologists at various hospitals across the country. Unless one is a cancer patient, receiving a permit is a long drawn­ out process.

Only four days before the summer solstice, the air is hot and heavy, the sky cloudless. The road along the highway is spotted with shrubbery, gas stations and occasionally vast rows of crop, somehow withstanding, even thriving under the tenacious desert sun.  

Driving south from Tel Aviv along Ayalon Highway, the scenery looks almost identical to Southern California — if not for the Hebrew-lettered billboards, the green-clad soldiers waiting by desolate bus stops and the occasional black-hatted Orthodox men walking along the road.