Israel, a leader in marijuana research and health technology, is attracting international investment as it tries to position itself as a cutting-edge exporter in the rapidly-growing market for medical-grade cannabis.

With estimates that the global market for medical marijuana could reach $50 billion by 2025, the Israeli government is set to allow the local industry to start exporting and projects annual revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Medical cannabis is a relatively new field with no universal clinical standard. Israel aims to fill the void by combining its expertise in agriculture, technology and cannabis-based medicine, said Yuval Landschaft, head of the health ministry's medical cannabis unit (IMCA).

Insomnia sufferers often swear by a puff of marijuana before bed. Now an Israeli company is helping to medicalize the practice with an inhaler that delivers a stable and controlled dose of a cannabis formula that lasts through the night.

i.can.sleep is a joint venture of iCAN:Israel-Cannabis, a group building out the medical marijuana industry in Israel and CannRx, a U.S. corporation that develops medical applications for cannabis.

The joint venture was announced at CannaTech, a conference on medical marijuana happening in Tel Aviv from March 20-22.

“You take a puff or two depending on the dosage and in ten minutes you will be drowsy enough to sleep,” said William Levine of CannRx.

Yuval Landschaft, the director of the Healthy Ministry's Medical Cannabis Unit, shared this estimate with the participants of CannaTech, Israel's Int'l Summit for Accelerating Cannabis Innovation.

Medical-grade cannabis products will likely be available to Israeli patients within the coming year, a Health Ministry official declared on Monday.

"I believe in the near future we are going to see the dream come true – my dream, your dream, the patient’s dream,” Yuval Landschaft, director of the Health Ministry's Medical Cannabis Unit, said at a Tel Aviv conference. “I believe that in less than a year we are going to have medical-grade cannabis products."

Company is developing medical grade vaporizers and extracts meant to treat central nervous system disorders.

Kanabo Research, a Tel Aviv-based medical cannabis company, is aiming its vaporization formulations and devices at medical patients instead of the recreational users more commonly associated with vaporization. The company is closing its seed round funding and launching its initial product offerings at the CannaTech summit this week.

The granting of preliminary approvals to build farms comes just a week-and-a-half after the cabinet authorized a plan to decriminalize marijuana use by first-time offenders.

In a move they hope will revolutionize the medical-cannabis sector, 37 farmers received preliminary permits from the Health Ministry to construct facilities for the plant’s cultivation.

Putting on cushions in the corner of a brightly decorated room in Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center, 11-year-old Eitan anxiously watched the sliding door leading to the hallway outside. Each time someone entered the room, he rushed past the hanging mobiles and flowers painted on the walls to make sure the door was shut securely.

“It is history in the making for an Israeli company to bring the tidings to the citizens of New Mexico.”

An Israeli and New Mexican company have joined forces to launch the first-ever pharmaceutical cannabis production lab in the United States.

The Lod-based Panaxia Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and the Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Ultra Health have opened a facility in Bernalillo, New Mexico, that will manufacture smokeless, accurately dosed cannabis medication in a variety of delivery methods, the companies announced this week in a joint statement.

‘Israel’s Cabinet has approved new measures on the path to decriminalize the use of marijuana in the country. Anyone caught using the drug for the first time will only be fined roughly $270 instead of facing criminal charges.

The new policy formulated by the Public Security and Justice ministries shifts focus from criminal prosecution of smokers to administrative fines and educational campaigns.

The policy abandons criminal proceedings against would be first-time offenders who are caught smoking weed in public. Instead, they will be fined 1,000 shekels ($271). The fine will double if the offender is caught the second time.

The cabinet is expected to vote Sunday to decriminalize the use of marijuana in Israel.

According to the proposal formulated by the Public Security and Justice ministries, any first-time offender caught using marijuana in public would receive a fine rather than face criminal action.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called the change a welcome one. “This is a milestone so thousands of ordinary people will no longer be considered criminals,” she said.

The proposal was based on the conclusions of a committee headed by Public Security Ministry Director General Rotem Peleg, with the recommendations accepted by her Minister Gilad Erdan.

In Israel, one of the leading countries in marijuana research, a push to decriminalize the drug is picking up steam, and the usual suspect are not leading it. Instead, political hawks and skullcap-wearing businessmen have taken on a cause that was once the domain of the peace camp.

“It is an issue of citizens’ rights,” said Sharren Haskel, who at 32 is the youngest Knesset member in the Likud party. Haskel is proposing a bill to downgrade marijuana possession and use from a criminal offense to an administrative offense. Under her bill, anyone caught with the herb in private would be subject to a 300 shekel fine ($81), while carrying and using in public would be subject to a 1,500 shekel fine ($405).