While several parties, including Likud, have been quick to reflect Zehut chairman Moshe Feiglin’s rise in the polls and to copycat his agenda of legalizing both medical and medical cannabis in Israel, National Union leader Bezalel Smotrich appears to be betting on religious, right-wing voters who are opposed to the idea.
In a video interview with Hakol Hayehudi published Wednesday, Smotrich, the most recognizable political leader of the alliance between Habayit Hayehudi, Jewish Power and his own National Union, said he refused to float with the new “murky stream of this fashion.”
“Legalization is life-endangering, a kind of cheap populism, and even if they were to limit the age of users, it would quickly reach children,” Smotrich said, pointing out that even today, when using cannabis is prohibited outright, it still makes its way to young people.
Smotrich suggested that Marijuana is a gateway drug. He also did not respond to Feiglin’s claim that Israel’s health ministry is endangering the lives of cancer patients by blocking or curtailing their access to cannabis. Feiglin also views the prohibition of weed as the top of an iceberg of centralized government control over the choices made by citizens.
“I think whomever votes for Feiglin is voting for the left,” Smotrich said. “In this situation [Feiglin] would have to choose between sitting in a government with Gantz and Lapid in exchange for legalization of cannabis, or sitting in a right-wing, national, Zionist government without this nonsense.”
Smotrich then added, “By the way, I am very troubled by Netanyahu’s flowing with this thing,” which means Feiglin could just as easily be sitting in a right-wing, national, Zionist government while getting weed legalized.