A medical marijuana patient in Israel is suing the government after they revoked his grow license, claiming that the Health Ministry is responsible for providing him with the tainted plants, TheMediaLine.org reports.
“Patient R,” one of just a dozen patients given a license to grow their own cannabis, says he discovered mold on the plants from Teva-Adir, a licensed supplier, and that he became sick after ingesting marijuana from the producer. His license was revoked after he reported the incident to the Health Ministry.
“He is suing the health ministry for providing him with dangerous substances and for not having clear rules for using pesticides in medical cannabis in Israel,” Oren Lebovich, chairman of the Green Leaf Organization, said in the report.
Yani Peretz, a criminal lawyer, sent samples from Patient R and two other suppliers, Tikun Olam and Seach, to the Israeli Chemical Testing Laboratory. Dr. Noam Chehanovsky, a cannabis researcher, analyzed the samples and found not only a potentially dangerous amount of pesticides in the Tikun Olam sample; but it had significantly lower values of the advertised active compounds – as much as 20 percent.
One strain, Eran-Almog, showed THC levels of 3.2 percent, far lower than the 24 percent to 28 percent advertised levels.
“With these bad results, I would have expected the health ministry to have been more determined to look into this finding,” Peretz said. “The Ministry of Health asked for more information from me instead of checking the suppliers.”
Ma’ayan Weisberg, head of International Relations for Tikun Olam, declined to comment on the findings because they were not given enough information about the testing process and the samples used by Chehanovsky.