France Enters The Medical Cannabis Industry

France tiptoes into the medical cannabis industry, but legalization needs to be implemented.

The French government issued a decree last month that authorizes the cultivation of medical cannabis and the development of its industry.

Although the decree entered into force on March 1, 2022, regulators need to implement it.

The legislation only specifies the conditions and procedures for the cultivation and production of cannabis for medical use.

The decree has amended some parts of France’s Code of Public Health to allow cultivation, production, manufacture, transport, import, export, and possession of cannabis and its derivatives under medical authorization.

The National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) will supervise the creation of the medical cannabis supply chain.

The agency has also set up a committee made up of 11 members to examine several aspects of the supply chain, including the identification of the cannabis strains available for the medical treatment, the level of THC and CBD, track and trace systems, the methods of ingesting cannabis-based medicines, and the pharmaceutical quality criteria.

The decree follows a medical cannabis pilot project announced in 2020 and launched in March 2021, which is currently targeting up to 3,000 patients suffering from severe conditions, such as chronic pain and epilepsy, and it will continue to operate, supervised by the ANSM, until March 26, 2023. [Read more at Forbes]