The Knesset plenum approved, in a preliminary reading, the 2022 bill to regulate the use of cannabis for medical purposes, Walla reported on Wednesday.
37 MKs supported the proposal submitted by Likud MK Moshe Passal, and 20 opposed it.
Previously, in 2020, then-Likud MK Sharren Haskel sponsored a bill to legalize cannabis in Israel, and while it had gone through the Knesset, it was never passed, Jewish Insider reported. Haskel joined Gideon Sa'ar in the forming of the New Hope party and is currently serving as Deputy Foreign Minister.
“The fight for the legalization of cannabis… is holding a flag of individual liberties, of stopping the prosecution, the criminalization of people here in Israel, more than one million citizens who are cannabis users,” Haskel said in a 2021 interview with Jewish Insider.
“As a fighter in anything to do with individual liberties, this is one of the flags of this fight.”
Previous plans
Haskel said they had initially planned to "decriminalize cannabis usage in Israel within 100 days of taking office and to completely legalize it within a year," she told Jewish Insider.
Haskel continued, saying she had brought issue of cannabis, "into the mainstream discourse in all the parties... after a lot of work that I've done within the party, and within the right about those values and about the importance of it, it became almost every party's voting promise, and I'm very proud of it."