The French National Assembly says yes to medical cannabis

As from next year, 3,000 French patients with severe medical conditions will benefit from these cannabis treatments. After the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) backed the implementation of this experimental project to assess the efficiency of cannabinoid-based treatments in certain patients, the project was taken to the National Assembly for approval. This initiative was put forward by the doctor and MP Olivier Véran, who proposed the bill as part of the 2020 Social Security Budget in the hope that some of it would be destined for the trial cannabis programme.

Véran presented this initiative with the backing from Agnès Buzyn, the French Minister of Solidarity and Health. Before the vote, he stated that this experimental project would help "determine the effect and efficiency of cannabis in real life, based on an ample group of patients, and within a totally safe, scientific frame." According to the panel of experts appointed by ANSM to analyse the therapeutic significance of cannabis, the 3,000 patients involved in this initial programme would be sufferers of serious diseases related to neuropathic pain, muscle spasticity, and cancer.

This does not mean that medical cannabis has been legalised in France but simply that an experimental project has been approved to assess the efficiency of cannabinoid-based treatments on 3,000 patients. The doctors prescribing these drugs will be neurologists, cancer experts, and doctors specialised in pain, who will receive training on the properties of cannabis before the start of the project. The 3,000 patients involved will participate on a voluntary basis. Only appointed professionals and health centres will be allowed to prescribe these treatments.

During the first phase of the project, in the first half of 2020, patients, doctors and health centres will be nominated, and doctors will be trained on cannabis treatments. In the second half of the year, each individual case will be evaluated, and it is then that cannabis will be prescribed to patients. The effects of the treatments on the patients will then be assessed, and relevant conclusions will be drawn. Following recommendations from the board of experts appointed by the Agency for the Safety of Medicines, there will be a multidisciplinary scientific board of patients and health professionals who will assess the correct development of the programme at all times.