Israel's Cannabis Honey is Causing a Buzz

Israel’s Cannabis Honey Is Causing A Buzz

Cannabis and honey are two of the healthiest natural substances in the world, and when you put them together, you’ve got potent and great-tasting medicine.

An Israeli company, PhytoPharma International, is now producing a line of artisanal honey made by feeding bees cannabinoids. Bees aren’t equipped with the mammalian endocannabinoid system that other animals have, which means that they don’t get high in the process. But this method works because the cannabinoids pass through their very own internal honey-making system, resulting in Pure Bee cannabis honey.

PhytoPharma was successfully able to trademark their method, which enable the bees to express the psychoactive tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) compounds in their honey efficiently, just by consuming small amounts of cannabinoids. On August 2015, the company filed a provisional application in the US, and in July 2016 they submitted a PCT which covers their entire delivery platform from beginning to end, including the bee feeding mechanisms all the way to the final product. By January 2018 they had entered national markets including US and Canada.

But Pure Bee cannabis honey isn’t an infused product: it’s naturally made because the bees convert the entire spectrum of the plant into their highly bioavailable honey. The honey actually acts as an agent to which various cannabis strains of different concentrations and ratios act on, in a similar way that other methods of cannabis consumption do, but it provides medical and recreational users a safer way to consume it instead of smoking or vaping.

Pure Bee was invented by Ilan Ben Simon, who had to stop working when he developed arthritis. The condition prompted him to turn to cannabis, and in the process he began researching the plant’s therapeutic benefits. Along the way, he became more knowledgeable about the products available as well as the cannabis market. Using data from Prof. Dedi Meiri, who leads the Cancer and Cannabinoid Research Lab at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Ben Simon worked on developing cannabis honey in collaboration with the professor.

“The pertinent thing that I feel is special about our product is that we are enhancing nature, by nature,” PhytoPharma International CEO Avner Ben Aharon told Forbes in an exclusive interview. “Although other people were trying to create natural honey with cannabis, only my inventor Ilan found a way to achieve it.” PhytoPharma says that they are utilizing the most state-of-the-art biotechnology available for enhancing natural products delicately. “We combined the healing powers of cannabis with the amazing delivery capability of honey. We aim to continue to apply our unique brand of ‘nature-tech’ to cannabis medicine, food, beverages, veterinary and cosmetic products,” explains Ben Aharon.

“There may be two optional mechanisms that can explain the honey’s high efficacy,” Ben Aharon says. “The honey serves as a high-efficient vector to cross the Blood-Brain-Barrier. While producing the honey, cannabinoids are transformed in the bees’ stomachs into superiorly efficient molecules.” The result is a one-of-a-kind red fuchsia honey which takes effect in as little as 5-10 minutes, while other edibles in the market can take 30 minutes to as long as three hours. This is why cannabis honey is an ideal medicine for patients who need fast-acting relief, like patients suffering from chronic pain. Additionally, Pure Bee cannabis honey is also 100 times more efficient; just 2 grams of the honey already contain 50ppm which is said to be effective in quickly treating fibromyalgia pain. The cannabis honey line is packaged in pre-measured dose syringes with a variety of potency levels to choose from: 1, 3, and 6 cc while the CBD honey has 0.5mg in each gram and the THC honey has 0.7mg per gram. To consume the honey, simply squeeze it out of the syringe directly underneath the tongue, or into a glass.

PhytoPharma has shared their plans of expanding their product line later on. Eventually, they will be combining other therapeutic ingredients with cannabinoids too; they also intend to develop products together with pharmaceutical companies, which are aimed at treating certain conditions.

“In the future, if companies will prove that specific cannabis strains can cure or treat specific illnesses, then we can make honey from those specific strains, specifically to treat the correlating illness,” said Ben Aharon.