Global Ganja Report

Israel is a world leader in medical marijuana and has adopted an experimental decriminalization policy. But activists are pushing to make it the world's third country to outright legalize—and are using some very audacious tactics.

The global prohibition of cannabis affords the opportunity for imperial powers and authoritarian regimes to exploit those caught in the web of enforcement to advance their own political agendas. The recent case of Naama Issachar was deftly leveraged by Vladimir Putin, and could encourage other depots to similarly use pot prisoners to exact concessions from foreign governments.

Two Israeli ex-prime ministers are now involved in the cannabis industry, and legalization became a key issue in this month's elections. But in a case of strange bedfellows, legalization was aggressively taken up as a campaign plank by the far right.

Israel's internal market for medical cannabis products is limited by the country's relatively small population, but with exports now approved by the cabinet, a multi-billion-dollar industry is foreseen. Since the announcement, share prices of cannabis companies on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange have soared.

In a strange paradox, Turkey's increasingly authoritarian President Erdogan has announced that he wants to expand legal cannabis cultivation in the country. His speech unveiling the proposal even portrayed the plant's prohibition as imposed by Western powers to undermine Turkish agriculture—appealing to his traditional Islamist base, with otherwise conservative instincts.

A parliamentary initiative has been launched to legalize medical marijuana cultivation in fabled hashish producer Lebanon, amid growing proposals for a general legalization of cannabis. But many growers in the Bekaa Valley are watching warily, fearing they will be left behind as foreign capital flows in for a legal industry.

Israel's Knesset overwhelmingly passed a cannabis decriminalization measure—sponsored by the ruling conservative government. This fruit of a long campaign by activists is, however, tentative. The law is set to expire in three years, pending a review of the policy's impacts.

A new cannabis legalization initiative is being pushed for Lebanon, long a legendary hashish producer. This time the idea has won influential international backers. And the cannabis-grower militias have actually mobilized to beat back ISIS incursions into the hashish heartland of Bekaa Valley from neighboring Syria. Is the time finally ripe for the day-lighting of Lebanon's powerful hashish industry?