Lighting up in Israel: a South African’s trip

GUY LIEBERMAN

South African-born Saul Kaye is the founder of CannaTech, a series of global cannabis conferences that bring industry players together to gather knowledge and nurture this blossoming ecosystem. Kaye is an entrepreneur and a chemist with a small, bustling pharmacy in Beit Shemesh.

“This is not actually a new industry for Israel,” Kaye says. “It started as legitimate research way back in the early 60’s with Professor Raphael Mechoulam’s request to the police to secure permission to explore the medicinal properties of the plant.” The 89-year-old Israel Prize-winner is an organic chemist, considered the bona-fide godfather of medical cannabis.

“Now, medical cannabis is booming around the globe, and the attention is returning to Israel because we’ve been doing it for such a long time,” Kaye says.

“A few years ago, there were two approaches to promoting cannabis. One was the Green Party, which was about ‘freeing’ the plant, everyone having the right to do whatever they want. That argument didn’t work. The other approach which was taking place simultaneously was medical inquiry [into cannabis], and a focus on research. There was no hubbub, no buzz around it, but it was credible. Effectively, we took the conversation with the Green Party, and shone a light towards medical research and all that this new industry would bring – sustainability, job creation, tax revenue. That’s a different language, one that many people could understand.”

This distinctive Israeli approach of taking a concept or idea and developing it into a new trade, with all that revolves around it – research, innovation, strategy, investment, marketing, and distribution – is by now a scenario we’ve become accustomed to. What’s unique in this particular case, however, is the baggage cannabis brings with it – the negative perception of the plant in the mainstream.

Mary Jane was the poster drug for the hippie movement, with the promise that it would help free one from the shackles of one’s desk and the control so tightly held by “The Man”. Along with stronger psychoactives like LCD, mushrooms, and MDMA, grass was celebrated as a key to liberation from the industrialised, capitalist system.

“For some reason, over the past 100 years, being happy, high, or drunk, has been associated with badness,” Kaye says. “Cannabis has been part of our diet for thousands of years, as was beer, as was olive oil. Those ingredients – hops, olive, and hemp, all contain cannabinoids, and these are healthy for you. They are part of our DNA, and should never have been taken from our diet.”

So, how have the Israelis navigated the counter-cultural emphasis on the psychoactive experience?

“One of the things Israel did well with its medical programmes was that it wasn’t about the high. There are different cannabinoids found in the plant, with THC being the psychoactive component and CBD being the element that doesn’t get you stoned. Both have proven medicinal value, but the quotients of either depend on the needs of the patient. Currently we’re focused on CBD, but next will be CBG, CBC, CBN… there are 300 molecules in the plant, each with their own medical uses, and we’ve identified 140 of them! That’s wellness, that’s cosmetics, pain creams, and salves, entirely new categories are going to be created.”

As the CannaTech brand has grown, so has Kaye’s influence. This year, he lead a delegation to the exclusive World Economic Forum for the first-ever CannaTech Davos. To give a sense of the altitude of people now getting involved in the sector, Ehud Barak travelled with him as one of the major sponsors of the Davos delegation.

Along with molecular research into cannabis is an equally meticulous set of technological advancements in hardware design.

To learn more, I met angel investor Brian Cooper from Syqe Medical, also a former South African.

“Marijuana? No thanks! That was the gateway drug to a world of addiction,” he says. “I never touched the stuff!” Cooper remained emphatic about this view of cannabis for most of his life, until he met Perry Davidson, his daughter’s boyfriend at the time.

Perry showed Cooper the first iteration of what is now Syqe Medical’s impressive world-first: a selective-dose, highly personalised, pharmaceutical grade inhaler.

As our straight-laced businessman who’s never smoked a joint in his life explains it, “The best way for cannabis to enter the body is through the lungs.” This may seem obvious to almost anyone, but he clarifies. “Don’t misunderstand, any kind of smoke is terrible for the lungs, but what we’re doing is vaporising the raw plant. While medical marijuana joints are working on quantums of 30g, we’re providing the essential THC or CBD requirements using as little as 3g.”

 It’s now becoming clear that the medical cannabis industry is a game-changer globally. Considering that Syqe Medical just raised $50 million (R703 million) in Series B finance for an inhaler, with an agreement with Teva Pharmaceuticals to take it to market, one gets the sense that cannabis is now entering the mainstream. We may as well take a deep breath, and settle in for the ride.

• A longer version of this article was first commissioned and published in Telfed magazine.