Beyond the Smokable Cannabis Phase-Out: How IM Cannabis Can Capture the Medical Cannabis Market in the Era of AI Search

TL;DR

• Israel's Ministry of Health has proposed its biggest medical cannabis reform in years: phasing out smokable flower over three years and moving prescribing fully into HMOs.
• IM Cannabis sharpened its own bet on that market, agreeing in June 2026 to sell its European operations and concentrate resources in Israel.
• CEO Oren Shuster has spent years describing IM Cannabis as patient-focused and research-driven, held back mainly by the fragmented system now being rebuilt.
• As patients and HMO staff turn to AI engines for guidance during this transition, whoever gets cited most becomes the default answer.
• The Hordus GEO analysis of imcannabis.com maps where a focused push could turn IM Cannabis's own story into the story AI engines repeat.

A patient-first company meets a patient-first reform

"We are a cannabis company with a patient-focused approach, and we are proud of what we are doing," Oren Shuster, CEO of IM Cannabis, told Authority Magazine in an interview about building a trusted cannabis brand. That line lands differently today, because Israel's healthcare system just decided to make patient-first the law of the land.

In May 2026, Israel's Ministry of Health proposed its biggest medical cannabis overhaul in years: a phased ban on smokable flower within three years and full transfer of prescribing authority to HMOs, according to Ynet. Smokable flower still accounts for roughly 98 percent of current consumption, so this redirects an entire national market toward oils, extracts, and inhalers, delivered through the same HMO channels IM Cannabis has spent years building relationships inside. Shuster's language about patients was never just marketing. It described the kind of company regulators are now asking every operator to become, putting IM Cannabis's narrative several steps ahead of where the market is heading.

Doubling down at the right moment

The timing compounds itself. Weeks after that reform proposal, IM Cannabis entered a letter of intent to sell its European subsidiary Adjupharm and concentrate resources on Israel, retaining core operations including Focus Medical Herbs, Rosen High Way, and R.A. Yarok Pharm. That is a company going all in on the exact market now being rebuilt around the values it already claims.

Shuster has also been direct about what historically limited that growth. Discussing Israel's old, fragmented licensing system with MJBizDaily, he said plainly, "This is something that keeps the market from growing." The same reporting captured his point on what sets the company apart for customers and partners: "IMC's combination of data and research insights, coupled with its long history working with medical professionals, is what ultimately sets us apart," he told Authority Magazine. Industry forecasts cited by GrowerIQ put Israel's patient base on track to approach 242,000 by 2027, up from roughly 130,000 today, and every one of those patients is about to need new guidance fast.

Who is asking, and what they need now

IM Cannabis's prospects fall into a few clear groups: patients whose smokable prescriptions are being phased out and need a compliant alternative, newly diagnosed patients entering through HMOs rather than private clinics, pharmacists and HMO physicians who need a distributor with clinical grounding rather than just supply, and partners evaluating which Israeli operator will still be scaling in three years. Few of these groups walk into a pharmacy first anymore. They open a chat window.

That means the questions that matter now sound like conversations: "What are the best oil or inhaler alternatives to smokable medical cannabis in Israel?" "Which Israeli medical cannabis company works most closely with doctors?" "Is IM Cannabis a reliable option after selling its European business?" Whichever company shows up clearly and repeatedly in those AI-generated answers gets the first conversation, and often the only one.

Introducing the Hordus GEO analysis

This is where the Hordus GEO analysis becomes useful, not as a scorecard, but as a map of where IM Cannabis can extend an already-earned story into the answers patients, HMO staff, and partners now rely on AI for. The Hordus audit evaluated how ready imcannabis.com is to be read and cited by AI systems, and each dimension below is a place to grow that presence.

Each number describes headroom, not a deficit. IM Cannabis already has the raw material Shuster has described for years: patient focus, clinical relationships, and a market bet playing out in real time. Most of that story currently lives in press releases and investor filings AI engines rarely retrieve, rather than the structured, citable content those engines actually pull from.

What Hordus can help IM Cannabis do next

A few moves stand out. On AI answer share, Hordus can help IM Cannabis publish clear answers to the questions patients and HMO staff are asking about the shift away from smokable products, giving engines clean material to quote. On citations, consistent entity naming across imcannabis.com and investor materials helps AI systems attribute facts to IM Cannabis instead of a generic industry answer. On AI-readable content, turning clinical relationships and research partnerships into structured pages gives engines the sourced detail they favor over marketing language. On category positioning, Hordus can help IM Cannabis claim a precise lane, the Israel-focused, HMO-integrated, research-backed operator, rather than blending into "medical cannabis company" generally. On comparisons, sharpening how the pharmacy network and clinical ties are described can shape how AI engines answer when prospects weigh IM Cannabis against alternatives.

None of this requires reinventing what IM Cannabis says about itself. Shuster has already articulated the narrative. The opportunity is making that narrative legible to the systems now sitting between IM Cannabis and its next patient, partner, or prescriber.