| Abir Sultan/Flash 90 |
| Moshe Ichiya of Cannabliss with medical marijuana in the pre-cookie stage |
The graduate of a master class in pastry making has started a company registered with the Israeli Health Ministry and is now baking cannabis cookies for about 350 patients — and as of this week, they are kosher for Passover.
Moshe Ichiya, a graduate of the Estella school’s master class in pastry making, runs the company Cannabliss in a location he will describe only as being “in the center of the country,” reports Mitch Ginsburg at the Times of Israel. Cannabliss is one of several companies registered with the Health Ministry and is the sole supplier of medicinal marijuana products to the Sharett Institute of Oncology at the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center.
“You see their flyers around the ward,” one recent patient said. Patients at Hadassah then call Ichiya.
For an Israeli patient to gain access to medicinal cannabis, their attending physician must be convinced that it is warranted. The doctor then sends a letter to the Health Ministry, which reviews the case and, if approved, sends the patient a cannabis license with their name and ID number, granting them legal permission to possess an individual prescribed amount of marijuana.
There are about 9,000 licensed medical marijuana patients in Israel, the highest per capita rate in the world, according to the Knesset Drug Abuse Committee.
Ichiya said he came to know about cannabis after a severe sprain of his ankle which occurred on army duty in south Lebanon. Some 11 years later, in 2010, he opened Cannabliss.
“They saw that the percentages per unit were precise and that the product was excellent,” Ichiya said of the lab at Hadassah under the direction of Professor Reuven Or.
He currently offers patients creams, drops and cookies. As a supplier to Orthodox communities in Jerusalem, the cookies and topical ointments made sense, as they allowed patients to use medical marijuana over Shabbat.
From there, of course, the next step, koshering for Passover, was a given. “I boiled the pots and everything,” he said of his pre-Passover preparations.
Available this year are cookies made from matzoh meal and, “for the most strict,” from potato flour. According to one patient, the cookies are delicious.
Since the marijuana is used as medicine, it requires no supervision from a rabbi. But visits from Cannabliss’s delivery person — well, Ichiya’s mother — come with explanations. “She lays all the supplies out on the table and explains everything to you,” the patient explained.