After six years of working as a nurse, mostly in psychiatric situations, Karam Shbeeta wanted to do something different, so he enrolled in a course about medical marijuana and there he found his calling. He decided to open up a cannabis coffee shop in the Arab-Israeli town of Tira, some 25 miles north of Tel Aviv.
When he first opened the coffee shop, about 8 months ago, his family was “confused and surprised," Shbeeta told Ha'retz. “They asked how I could leave my safe career as a nurse in order to open a coffee shop.” But his coffee shop, called Smokey Monkey, attracted people from around the region, including nearby Jewish cities and towns.
