Emmy Award-winning television personality Montel Williams is impressed with Israel’s policies towards medical marijuana, and thinks that America should follow in its ally’s footsteps.

The host of “The Montel Williams Show” was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1999 and has been an outspoken advocate of medical marijuana ever since. Williams was in Israel on Sunday on a fact-finding mission to learn about the country’s medical cannabis policies. He met with legislators, scientists and physicians.

Itay Goor-Aryeh, the head of the pain management unit at the Sheba Medical Center in central Israel, explained that certain doctors can approve cannabis prescriptions. Though marijuana use is strictly regulated, doctors sometimes prefer cannabis to more serious, addictive prescription drugs.

"Those patients, if they do not get cannabis, they will get morphine-like drugs and other harmful drugs," Goor-Aryeh said to the Associated Press. "I think that in many ways, cannabis is tolerated and is less addictive that morphine-based drugs."

"We need to get out of the dark ages and into the new ages," Williams said. "Not every patient can use cannabis, but for those who can—why deny it?"

"For me, there is nothing else that can do what it does," he added. "It helps me suppress my pain ... When I am not using cannabis I am thinking about my pain every 45 seconds."

Only 16 states have currently legalized the use of medical marijuana.