Medical Cannabis for Anxiety or Depression in Israel

It is one of the most common questions asked about Israel's medical cannabis programme, and it has a blunt answer. Anxiety disorders and depression are not approved indications in Israel. More than that: the Health Ministry lists anxiety among the reasons a permit will be refused, even to a patient who would otherwise qualify on a different condition.

That is an unusual position, and it is worth understanding properly — because the reasoning behind it is not bureaucratic caution, and because there is one psychiatric route that does exist.

This guide is general information, not medical or legal advice. Decisions about treating anxiety, depression or PTSD belong with a treating physician. Nothing here is a recommendation to start, stop or change any treatment.

What Israel actually approves

The Ministry of Health's own patient-facing guidance sets out the eligible conditions plainly: "People suffering from cancer, Crohn's disease, colitis, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, PTSD, or terminal diseases, and people suffering from a neuropathic pain may be eligible for medical cannabis, which may help them in situations where medications or other treatments have failed to help" (Ministry of Health, 20 November 2025).

On the mental-health side the list is narrower still. The ministry's Medical Cannabis Unit names exactly three: "There are three approved mental health conditions that qualify for medical cannabis therapy or disorders that require a psychiatrist's endorsement: 1. People over the age of 18 diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 2. People over the age of 18 diagnosed with Tourette syndrome and have trouble with daily tasks. 3. People diagnosed with dementia who also have behavioral disorders" (Ministry of Health, 13 August 2025).

Anxiety disorders, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and insomnia appear on neither list. There is no off-label workaround: only a specialist in a recognised indication may submit a request, and "a family doctor cannot file a request," as the ministry's application guidance puts it (Ministry of Health, 13 August 2025). For how that process works generally, see how to get a medical cannabis licence in Israel and the full qualifying conditions.

Anxiety is not merely absent — it is an exclusion

This is the part that surprises people. Both ministry pages list anxiety as a contraindication, meaning it can block a permit sought for something else entirely.

The mental-health page states that a permit "will not be issued" in cases of "active psychosis," "history of psychosis," "severe anxiety," "a strong history of mental illness in a first-degree family member, especially in people younger than 30," a history of addiction or substance abuse, or pregnancy and breastfeeding. The older-adult page uses slightly different wording for the same rule, excluding "people who suffer from anxiety attacks."

So a patient with, say, neuropathic pain and a significant anxiety disorder is not in a neutral position. Their anxiety is a factor weighing against approval, not a second reason to grant it. The ministry adds a procedural consequence: where someone with a psychiatric history seeks cannabis for a non-psychiatric reason, "the doctor's opinion must be included with the permit request."

Why: the evidence does not support it

The exclusion tracks the clinical literature rather than running ahead of it. The largest synthesis of the question — 83 studies, 40 of them randomised controlled trials, covering 3,067 participants — reached a conclusion that leaves little room: "There is scarce evidence to suggest that cannabinoids improve depressive disorders and symptoms, anxiety disorders, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder, or psychosis" (Black et al., The Lancet Psychiatry, 2019).

The same review found a small anxiety benefit only from pharmaceutical THC in people being treated for other medical conditions, and graded that evidence "very low quality." On the harm side it was more definite: pharmaceutical THC "did increase the number of people who had adverse events (OR 1·99 [95% CI 1·20 to 3·29]) and withdrawals due to adverse events (2·78 [1·59 to 4·86]) compared with placebo across all mental disorders examined."

That combination — no reliable benefit, measurable dropout from side effects — is the honest reading of why a regulator writes anxiety into the exclusion column rather than the indication column. The ministry itself does not overclaim for the programme as a whole: "Cannabis is not a registered drug ('medicine'), and its safety and effectiveness for treating medical conditions have not yet been proven."

The one psychiatric route: PTSD

PTSD is the exception, and it is a demanding one. The endorsement must come from "a specialist psychiatrist who has been seeing the patient for at least a year," or from another psychiatrist alongside the treating psychiatrist. The criteria, per the mental-health page, require all of the following:

• The disorder is "moderately severe or more" and meets "the criteria of at least 30% disability set by the National Insurance Institute or the Ministry of Defense."
• The disorder "has been going on for more than a year and causes severe mental pain."
• The patient "has tried at least two approved drug treatments and two approved psychological treatments; and has no history of psychosis or drug abuse."

During the first year, the treating psychiatrist meets the patient every six months.

One caution worth flagging: the ministry's two English-language pages do not agree on the duration threshold. The mental-health page (August 2025) says the disorder must have persisted "more than a year"; the older-adult eligibility page (November 2025) says "lasting for over three years," and adds that each of the two failed drug treatments must have run "for a minimum of two months." Both pages are live. Anyone assessing their own eligibility should treat the stricter reading as the working assumption and confirm the current criteria with the endorsing psychiatrist rather than with a web page.

PTSD is also the fastest-growing indication in the programme. Licences for it rose from 7,329 in December 2020 to 16,478 in April 2024 and 18,074 by March 2025, while chronic non-cancer pain remained the largest category at 63% (Aviram, Journal of Cannabis Research, 2025). Notably, when most indications were transferred to the health funds in April 2024, PTSD and chronic non-cancer pain were the two that stayed with the Medical Cannabis Unit. Our guide to medical cannabis for PTSD in Israel covers that pathway in detail.

What this means in practice

• There is no anxiety or depression indication, and asking a different specialist will not create one. The indication list is closed and the application route is specialist-gated.
• Disclosing an anxiety diagnosis matters. It is a listed contraindication, and concealing it undermines exactly the medical supervision the permit is conditioned on — the ministry's application guidance makes a permit contingent on medical supervision "at least once a year or at the doctor's discretion."
• If the underlying condition is PTSD, that is a different conversation. It has a defined route, a defined evidence base, and a psychiatrist who must know the patient.
• Cost is not covered. The same guidance states plainly that cannabis "is not part of the health services basket," and the health funds charge a separate fee for the examination, the permit and the prescription. See what medical cannabis costs in Israel.

The bottom line

Israel runs one of the world's larger medical cannabis programmes, and it still declines to treat anxiety or depression with it. That is a considered position rather than an oversight: the best available evidence shows scarce benefit for mood and anxiety disorders and a measurable increase in adverse events, and the ministry has written severe anxiety into the list of reasons to say no.

For the broader picture of who does qualify and how the system works, start at our Patient Access hub.