The end of a great blur and good news for patients. The Government has taken an important step in favor of the legalization of therapeutic cannabis this Wednesday, March 19, announcing a crucial administrative formality and the extension of the experimentation of treatments based on cannabis in France.
“The texts that define the framework of production and authorization of cannabis for medical use have been notified to the European Commission,” said the Ministry of Health in a statement. The Ministry also clarified the situation of treated patients as part of the current experiment, which will be extended “until March 31, 2026”, and this “exceptionally.”
A crucial administrative formality for 1,200 patients whose treatment had been interrupted. “This is a huge relief,” said BFMTV Mado Gilanton, president of the Association of People with Curarino Syndrome, who follows patients ordered with therapeutic cannabis.
“These are patients at a therapeutic dead point who finally received treatment after sometimes years of great difficulties. Doctors were still forced to tell them that they were going to stop everything,” he said.
An always experimental treatment
The medical use of cannabis, against pain and anxiety, has been the subject of an experiment for several years in France, while many countries already make it possible to propose these treatments.
To judge that this experiment had borne fruit, the parliamentarians had voted at the end of 2023 measures that allowed the marketing of cannabis based treatments. At first, the latter would obey the transition status for five years.
But these provisions had never entered into force, since they require that the Ministry of Health officially report to the European Commission. However, this had not yet been done. Some experts, linked to experimentation, explained this blockade for the instability of the government observed during the period, or by the lack of political will.
Towards a generalization?
The announcement made on Wednesday by the Ministry, therefore, unlocks the situation. Depending on the discussions with the EU, experts believe that it has been at least six months after this notification to consider the concrete arrival of the treatments. In addition, as the Ministry recalled on Wednesday, the possible reimbursement of these treatments will depend on an evaluation by the high health authority (HA).
However, the benefits of medicinal cannabis are not consensus. The main reference study, published in 2021 in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and carried out of many other works, concluded that medicinal cannabis makes it possible to improve the “limited” or “very limited” situation of patients.
The Ministry also clarified the situation of treated patients as part of the experiment. It ended at the end of 2024 and the participants faced the risk of being deprived of their medication before the effective generalization of these treatments.
They had already been given a delay until the summer of 2025. The Ministry of Health announced that the date had been postponed in the spring of 2026, a postponement that theoretically allows to project to generalization.
Source: BFM TV
