Two-year medical cannabis trial passed in France

The country’s journey towards legalisation advances as the National Assembly gave green light to this proposal

The Government voted in favour of this new regulation past Friday October 25^th, and ASNM (Agence Nationale de Sécurité du Médicament et des Produits de Santé) has already backed the plans. Following the vote, Junior Health Minister Christelle Dubos stated that she “hopes that the experiments can begin in the first quarter of 2020.”
France therefore joins the growing list of European countries that allow the medical use of cannabis, after months of waiting since the experiments were approved in June 2019. Economists have also showed their supports towards this new measure as it will suppose a huge new income source for the country’s budget.

Olivier Veran, the MP who proposed the bill, says that these new measurements will affect in its early stages around 3.000 sick people in France. The target of this trial will be patients who are suffering pain that no other medication relieves and that can benefit from the therapeutical properties that cannabis has. Also it can be prescribed to people undergoing chemotherapy treatments to help with the side effects or to patients under palliative cares.
Doctors can now choose to voluntarily join this trial, and those who decide to do so will receive additional training on the effects and benefits of cannabis through an online course. As a result of this test, the plant will be more thoroughly studied along with the advantages and possible side effects that its intake might result in.
For now, it will be prescribed in an inhaled or ingested form through pills, oils or infusions, and not in the cigarette or “joint” form.
The Medical Cannabiz World Summit will take place from the 4^th to 5^th November at the Intercontinental, St Julian’s, Malta, to be followed by the inaugural launch of the Medical Cannabiz World Asia Summit which will be held in Bangkok on the 22^nd and 23^rd of June 2020 at the Centara Grand Hotel.