2004 — the seventh prescription
I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease during my military service in 1999. Conventional treatment did what it does — biologics, steroids, the long pharmacological corridor — and for me, like for many Crohn's patients, it ran out before the disease did.
In 2004 I applied directly to Israel's Ministry of Health for a medical cannabis licence. I received the seventh ever issued in the country, and the first granted by direct application — without a prior court order, which had been the entry path for the six patients before me. I was Patient #7.
I did not set out to build anything. I set out to feel better. The building came after, because once I was inside the system I could see how broken it was for everyone else.
2005-2008 — the advocacy years
In 2005 I co-founded the Israel Medical Cannabis Association (IMCA) — the country's first patient-advocacy organization for medical cannabis. I served as chairman until 2016, when Dana Bar-On succeeded me.
The organization was where the policy work happened, but the ground work was patient education. Over and over again I'd watch a newly-licensed patient go to a dispensary, get handed a product, and come back six weeks later having quit because "it didn't work." The product was fine. The patient education was zero.
In 2008 the Ministry of Health licensed me as Israel's first Medical Cannabis Instructor — the formal credential. That same year I built the country's first structured patient education program. In 2012 I built the first nurses' training program.
2012 — the Czech Parliament
By 2012 the work in Israel had a track record other countries wanted to look at. Czech officials were preparing to legalize medicinal cannabis (which they did in 2013), and I was invited to address the Czech Parliament's Health Committee. The visit was covered by Hospodářské noviny under the headline "Prosadil konopí jako lék v Izraeli, teď bude přesvědčovat poslance v Česku" ("He pushed through cannabis as medicine in Israel, now he'll convince MPs in Czechia") and by Czech Radio.
I have since advised officials in Bulgaria on similar questions. I am not a politician. I show up, share what worked and what didn't, and leave the rest to the people whose job it is to legislate.
2015 onward — the technology
In 2015 I co-founded Cannaboost, a terpene-technology company. Out of that work came US Patent US11346051B2 — "Aromatized and flavored paper products" — which describes a cold terpene-printing process I'd been developing for years. The patent was granted in 2022. CANNABOOST scaled to over 100,000 units a month.
The product work was its own thing. The thread connecting all of it was the same thread: cannabis is a complex system, and the patient is part of the system, not a passenger in it.
2018-2024 — the operators
The patient-education programs I'd built were eventually adopted by Tikun Olam, BOL Pharma, Bazelet Group, and IMC — Israel's largest licensed cannabis operators. Across those programs we moved average patient retention from approximately four months to thirty-four. The programs were eventually discontinued for internal operational reasons. The patient outcomes were not in dispute.
Ten thousand patients personally guided. Over a hundred thousand onboarded through the system at large.
Now — WIZDOM
Today I'm building WIZDOM. It is the smallest and most focused thing I've ever done. Fifty active clients at a time. A premium 1:1 practice for the cannabis patients who tried the system and watched it fail them. The patients who were told to come back and report and never were given a way to come back, or anyone to report to.
The cannabis side of WIZDOM is what twenty years has prepared me for. The AI side is new. AI lets me do this work at a level of personalization that wasn't possible when I had only my hands and a notebook. But the same trap applies: the appearance of understanding is not understanding. Patients who use AI as a get-out-of-jail-free card for their own accountability use it worse than they'd use a human consultation. The fix is not less AI — it is more accountability.
That is what WIZDOM is built to honor. I am not a doctor. I am the patient who built what the doctors weren't building. I work with the patients who are ready to do the same — to bring cannabis under their own control instead of letting their dispensary, their algorithm, or their hopes decide for them.