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href="https://truthout.org/articles/enjoy-your-high-but-not-at-the-expense-of-palestinian-human-rights/">https://truthout.org/articles/enjoy-your-high-but-not-at-the-expense-of-palestinian-human-rights/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Enjoy Your High, But Not at the Expense
of Palestinian Human Rights</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">Ariel Gold - March 5, 2019<br>
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<p>Medical cannabis is considered the next up-and-coming
miracle drug, with very few side effects. But with
Israeli companies bursting onto the international
market, medical cannabis exported from Israel may soon
have to come with a new warning. Beware: purchase of
this product may contribute to violations of Palestinian
human rights.</p>
<p>The Israeli medical cannabis industry, as it is
currently set up, whitewashes Israeli war crimes,
provides legitimacy and profits for people responsible
for past massacres in Gaza, and supports Israel’s
illegal settlement, a direct cause of Palestinian
suffering.</p>
<p>On December 28, the Israeli Knesset approved
legislation for the legal export of medical cannabis.
While the law still needs to be finalized — it needs the
prime minister’s signature — <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/.premium-pot-luck-investing-in-israeli-medical-cannabis-stocks-is-guesswork-1.6941471">exports
are expected to begin by the end of 2019</a>, and the
Israeli cannabis industry is celebrating. Saul Kaye, CEO
of iCAN, an Israeli venture fund and medical cannabis
technology incubator, <a
href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ican-israel-cannabis-ceo-cannabis-to-become-as-important-to-israels-economy-as-high-tech-300770761.html">boasted</a>,
“Israel, already the most advanced nation in cannabis
R&D, will now be able to produce and market cannabis
and cannabis-based products that will help millions of
people.”</p>
<p>The <a
href="https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Senior-Thai-delegation-visits-Israel-to-cultivate-medical-cannabis-knowledge-579749">global
medical cannabis market</a> is expected to reach $28
billion by 2024 and Israel is already a big part of it.
Thanks to a merger with Canada’s Aurora, the Israeli
medical cannabis company Tikun Olam <a
href="https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-next-for-tikun-olam-a-cannabis-pharmacy-1001258106">holds
a value</a> of $400 million. Another company called
Together Pharma, which has products for sale in Delaware
and Washington State, and will soon sell medical
marijuana in California and Florida, was <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/what-is-an-israeli-cannabis-company-doing-in-uganda-the-answer-is-hazy-1.6548072">valued</a>
at 300 million shekels (around $83 million) as of
October 2018. InterCure, an Israeli holding company for
small medical cannabis firms, is <a
href="https://www.profitconfidential.com/stock/intercure-ltd-stock/intercure-stock-israeli-marijuana-stock/">valued</a>
at around $180 million. InterCure aims to produce 100
tons of medical cannabis by 2020.</p>
<p>In September 2018, InterCure, looking to further its
enormous financial success, brought on former Israeli
Prime Minister Ehud Barak to be the company’s chairman.
As chairman, Barak <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/.premium-meet-israel-s-many-medical-marijuana-millionaires-including-former-prime-minister-1.6895423">receives</a>
a $10,000 monthly salary and has InterCure stock options
worth more than $12.3 million.</p>
<p>While Barak may now be profiting off a company charged
with the distribution and promotion of a fantastic and
helpful product, Barak’s history toward one entire group
of human beings — Palestinians — has been the opposite
of healing. </p>
<h2>Securing Profits for Israeli War Criminals</h2>
<p>Barak served 35 years in the Israeli military, rising
to the rank of Rav Aluf (lieutenant-general), the
highest possible rank, and was the Israeli military’s
most decorated soldier. Between 1999 and 2001, he served
as prime minister and then held the posts of minister of
defense and deputy prime minister between 2009 and 2013.</p>
<p>During his military service, Barak led Israel’s
December 2008-January 2009 Operation Cast Lead war
against Gaza, which <a
href="https://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/during-cast-lead/by-date-of-event">killed</a>
almost 1,400 Palestinians, including 344 Palestinian
minors killed in Gaza by the Israeli military. He was
minister of defense during Israel’s 2010-11 Pillar of
Defense offensive on Gaza, killing <a
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130607064406/http:/www.btselem.org/press_releases/20130509_pillar_of_defense_report">167</a>
Palestinians (mostly civilians), and the Israeli Navy’s
2010 attack on the MV Mavi Marmara — a Turkish boat
sailing as part of an international flotilla to break
the siege on Gaza — where 10 unarmed activists were
murdered.</p>
<p>In 2009, British lawyers <a
href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/29/ehud-barak-war-crimes-israel">petitioned</a>
a London court to arrest Ehud Barak on charges of war
crimes and breach of the Geneva Convention. In 2010,
lawyers in Belgium <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/1.5138515">brought
charges</a> against him for war crimes, including the
use of the chemical weapon white phosphorus during
Operation Cast Lead. In 2015, Barak was sued in the
United States for his role in the Mavi Marmara flotilla
massacre. The lawsuit was <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/ehud-barak-served-us-lawsuit-over-gaza-flotilla-slaying/14978">filed</a>
by the parents of Turkish-American citizen Furkan Doğan,
who was shot multiple times at point-blank range during
the raid. “If those who took part in the decision are
not held to account, then … there is nothing to prevent
the Israelis deciding to take such aggressive action in
the future,” Doğan’s father said.</p>
<p>Barak, having largely managed to evade accountability,
is now rebranding himself as a leader in medicinal
cannabis healing.</p>
<p>While Barak’s InterCure may be the most obviously
problematic Israeli cannabis company, it is not the only
one entangled in occupation. The company Together Pharma
<a
href="https://together-pharma.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Together-Pharma-English-.pdf">lists</a>
Guy Atia, an “expert in the security field,” as
co-director and controlling shareholder, and retired
Brigadier General Meir Ben Yishai as being in charge of
“defense and security.” While it isn’t clear exactly
what roles these two men play in the company, usually in
Israel, the terms “defense” and “security” have some
link to Israel’s military occupation and settlement
economy.</p>
<p>In September 2018, Together Pharma set up a <a
href="https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3741933,00.html">joint
subsidiary</a> with Dead Sea cosmetic company Premier,
whose products are <a
href="https://corporateoccupation.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/kibbutz-kalia-part-1-a-holiday-in-israeli-apartheid/">featured</a>
at the Dead Sea resort of Kibbutz Kalia in an illegal
Kalya, West Bank, settlement.</p>
<p>In January 2017, the first Israeli-recognized <a
href="https://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/Israels-Ariel-University-opens-first-academic-course-on-medical-cannabis-477163">academic
course</a> for medical cannabis began. Students in the
course learn the history, legal background, regulation
and current status of medical cannabis in Israel. They
study cannabis’s active ingredients, farming, various
technologies and innovative developments, and even
“moral dilemmas” involved in the product. What isn’t
addressed is that the course is held at Ariel
University, located in the illegal settlement of Ariel,
thereby directly contributing to Palestinian suffering
and violations of international law.</p>
<p>Having Ehud Barak as lead in one of Israel’s largest
medical cannabis companies sends a message to the world
that there is no necessity in holding Israel accountable
for massacres in Gaza. This applies not just to the
past, to the war crimes Barak is guilty of, but clears
the way for Israel to continue on an ongoing basis to
commit such crimes. On February 28, 2019, the United
Nations Human Rights Council <a
href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/world/middleeast/israel-crimes-against-humanity-gaza-un.html">released
a statement</a> that the actions Israel has been
carrying out in Gaza over the past 11 months may
constitute crimes against humanity. Since March 30,
2018, Israel has shot more than 6,000 people with live
ammunition, killing 189, including 35 children, at
protests near Israel’s fence around Gaza. The U.N.
investigation stated there were “reasonable grounds to
believe that Israeli snipers shot at journalists, health
workers, children and persons with disabilities, knowing
they were clearly recognizable as such.”</p>
<p>By welcoming into their community the man responsible
for Israel’s 2008-09 and 2010-11 assaults on Gaza, the
Israeli cannabis industry is giving a stamp of approval
for the continuation of such massacres.</p>
<p>Like Barak’s leadership, the Israeli cannabis
industry’s involvement in settlements whitewashes and
contributes to human rights abuses against Palestinians.
The United Nations is unequivocal that such settlements
are illegal, the Fourth Geneva Convention stating that
an “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts
of its own civilian population into the territory it
occupies.” A January 2016 <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/01/19/occupation-inc/how-settlement-businesses-contribute-israels-violations-palestinian">report</a>
by Human Rights Watch details how settlements businesses
contribute directly to violations of Palestinian human
rights and that businesses should immediately “cease
carrying out activities inside or for the benefit of
settlements.” Both <a
href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/11/20/bed-and-breakfast-stolen-land/tourist-rental-listings-west-bank-settlements">Human
Rights Watch</a> and <a
href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/01/israel-opt-tourism-companies-driving-settlement-expansion-profiting-from-war-crimes/">Amnesty
International</a> have specifically called for an end
to settlement tourism, and certainly this should apply
to academic courses in settlement universities as well.
Vacation rental giant Airbnb heeded this advice in
November 2018, <a
href="https://press.airbnb.com/listings-in-disputed-regions/">announcing</a>
the removal of West Bank settlement listing due to
settlements being “at the core of the dispute between
Israelis and Palestinians.”</p>
<h2>Medical Cannabis as a Socially Responsible Industry?</h2>
<p>It isn’t just in Israel that the cannabis industry has
veered away from its “one love” Bob Marley social
justice roots. Spend more than a few minutes watching
CNN and you will see a <a
href="https://www.ispot.tv/ad/d8jG/2019-american-cannabis-summit-join-boehner-online">commercial</a>
from former Speaker of the House John Boehner telling
you that you, too, can benefit financially from the
newly legalized cannabis industry. Progressive Rep.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, recently spoke out
about the U.S. cannabis industry’s failings to right the
wrongs of the U.S. drug war: “Is this industry
representative of the communities that have historically
beared [sic] the greatest brunt of injustice based on
the prohibition of marijuana?” Ocasio-Cortez <a
href="https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1098005062012420096">asked</a>
in a congressional hearing. As she cited, in Colorado
and Washington State, where cannabis is legal, 81
percent of cannabis executives are white, 73 percent are
male; while in Massachusetts, only 2.2 percent of
cannabis businesses are owned by women and 3.1 percent
are owned by people of color.</p>
<p>But American cannabis, even as it is being run by white
men co-opted to fit with Republican-style
winner-takes-all capitalism, doesn’t carry the same
baggage as Israeli occupation.</p>
<p>Ever since I turned 40, I have suffered from insomnia.
I fall asleep easily enough but then, around three or
four in the morning, I wake up and can’t fall back
asleep. I’ve found through trial-and-error, the most
effective sleep aid is a light puff on a joint.</p>
<p>I’m a big fan of medical cannabis. Along with sleep
disorders, cannabis has been proven effective in
treating PTSD, cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, multiple
sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s disease, anorexia,
glaucoma, schizophrenia, muscle spasms, nausea, pain,
and more.</p>
<p>I have no need to purchase cannabis products from
Israel. Plenty of local (non-John Boehner), organic,
high-grade medical cannabis is grown and distributed
throughout the United States, without the profits going
to pay war criminals or whitewash Israel’s settlement
economy. From small and large family farms in Northern
California to personal cultivation in Washington, D.C.,
when I go into a dispensary to look for strains and
methods of administration to help me sleep, I am able to
shop locally and purchase from farmers and companies
that guarantee such things as living wages and health
benefits for their workers. Since I don’t want to
contribute to Palestinian human rights abuses, I will
now make sure I don’t purchase cannabis from InterCure
or Together Pharma’s U.S. subsidy or any other
Israeli-owned cannabis company. I hope the next time you
go into a cannabis dispensary you, too, will make sure
that your relief does not contribute to Israeli
apartheid.</p>
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