The medical marijuana industry in Israel is growing rapidly — with no organized government or religious opposition to be found, reported Fox News.

Today, there are more than 10,000 Israelis who have the government’s go-ahead to use medical marijuana, a major jump from just a few hundred in 2005. Next year, marijuana may be available in pharmacies, a step just a few other countries have made.

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While the U.S. still has magnitudes more people using medical marijuana — Colorado’s 82,000 users in a population of 5 million dwarfs the 10,000 users in Israel, which has 10 million people — the lack of opposition means Israel is poised to keep moving forward on research.

In contrast, a medical marijuana dispensary sued the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency this week after those agencies raided the dispensary in October and threatened to shut it down, reported the Courthouse News Service.

Israel’s Itay Goor Aryeh, who directs the Pain Management Center at a medical center near Tel Aviv, said that legalization allows scientists to delve into marijuana’s potential as medicine. “If you don’t allow it, you will never know,” he said.