Medical marijuana? Montel Williams impressed by Israeli approach

Montel Williams speaking in Jerusalem on Sunday, Oct. 30, 2011.

/ AP Photo

(CBS/AP) Montel Williams says the U.S. could learn a thing or two from Israel's liberal stance on medical marijuana. The Emmy Award-winning TV personality was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999 and he has been an outspoken advocate of medical marijuana to relieve pain caused by the disease since then.

PICTURES - Medical marijuana: Which 16 states permit pot?

Williams, 55, is in Israel on a fact-finding mission to learn about its approach to medical weed. He's meeting with legislators, scientists and doctors.

"We need to get out of the dark ages and into the new ages," he told The Associated Press. "Not every patient can use cannabis, but for those who can - why deny it?"

In Israel, certain doctors can approve cannabis prescriptions and disperse them to patients, said Itay Goor-Aryeh, the head of the pain management unit at the Sheba Medical Center in central Israel. He said that while marijuana use is carefully regulated, many doctors prefer prescribing it to patients who qualify because it is "the lesser of evils."

"Those patients, if they do not get cannabis, they will get morphine-like drugs and other harmful drugs," said Goor-Aryeh. "I think that in many ways, cannabis is tolerated and is less addictive that morphine-based drugs."

Sixteen U.S. states have decriminalized the use of medical marijuana. Critics claim dispensaries are often no more than drug trafficking fronts.

Williams said that those merely seeking to smoke pot won't go through the lengthy bureaucratic process when they could just "go down the street."

Williams said he takes cannabis on a daily basis.

"For me, there is nothing else that can do what it does," he said. "It helps me suppress my pain... When I am not using cannabis, I am thinking about my pain every 45 seconds."

He said the drug had been "vilified to substantiate the false reason why it was banned in the first place," and that he hoped it would one day become a regular prescription drug.

"There are chemicals within that plant," he said, "and some of the leading science on where and how those chemicals work is being done right here in this country," referring to Israel.

20 Photos

Medical marijuana: 18 states that permit pot

[StupidTeabagger]

U.S. Representative Earl Blumenauer from Oregon is sponsoring HR 689 which would prevent DEA enforcement of Marijuana prohibitions in states that have legalized its use for medical patients.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/hr689

[hindsightis2020]

The corporate owned politicians will never end prohibition of cannabis. No matter how much nerve pain I experience, nor how many of my physicians recognize mmj(all of them) the corporate owned fed's will continue to lie.

A major hurdle is, IF the fed's ended marijuana prohibition, they would have to end prohibition of industrialized hemp. This will NEVER happen, not in my lifetime anyway. I do fear for what the corporate'ized American government has become, I should not be afraid of my country due to a non toxic plant.

[Anotheryahoo]

The FDA and DEA are bought off period, its why there are so many idiotic laws on the books. The FDA cant be trusted at all on much of anything its involved with. A evil group willing to steal cancer treatments for its own corporations profits. Saying its OK to have mercury in your mouth? Amazing this is our govt. The marijuana laws are pretty much a bunch of lies pawned as facts by the special interest owned govt we have. To say it has no medicinal value is just a huge lie.

[legalizemj]

Prohibitionists, like President Obama, like to label marijuana a "harmful substance", however marijuana is far LESS harmful than beer and wine which are LEGAL, and far LESS harmful than the federal marijuana prohibition which causes the arrest of 850,000 people every year and draws drug dealers into our communities and around our children!

It is outrageous to have the federal government ban stores from selling legally-grown marijuana to adults when this ban *doesn't* prevent people from buying, selling and using marijuana and it *does* make marijuana easily accessible to children by creating large profits for illegal dealers where otherwise there would be NONE.

[retiredgustav]

It's just not Obama opposing legalization, it is al of those idiots , with the exception of Ron Paul , who are opposed to the repeal of marijuana prohibition.

[biased1]

This is such an old argument forgive me for stating the obvious: legalization at the national level will never happen - the US is just too big. Israel has the population of an average state in the US. The only hope is to let states decide these matters on their own, meanwhile we scale back (ideally eliminate) the power of the Feds including the DEA.

[legalizemj]

In other words, the same policy we use for alcohol? That's worked successfully for alcohol for the past seventy years and it'll work just as well for marijuana.

[biased1]

Dear legalizemj - if you can convince the majority of Americans to legalize then hallelujah. You seem to believe that the American system will act rationally like it did when it repealed Prohibition. But back then America wasn't the militaristic empire it is today. Americans don't care much about the violence the drug war causes, any more than they care about 100,000 dead Iraqis.

[rwsmith29456]

Approving medical marijuana should be a no-brainer. General acceptance is going to take some work. If they want to keep marijuana illegal I say they should make alcohol legal. It's addictiveness and associated medical and most likely, social problems far exceed that of pot and it has been proven. What else has been proven is that illegalizing something that people want doesn't work.

[hsinco-2009]

Be careful Montel, the DEA is going rouge on medical marijuana patients/businesses!