France’s New Health Minister Extends Medical Cannabis Programme Again, But Patients Urged to Seek Alternative Treatment
Thousands of French medical cannabis patients have been given a temporary reprieve, enabling them to continue accessing their treatment for another six months.
Amid the continued political chaos in the country, participants in France’s medical cannabis ‘experiment,’ which is now entering its fifth year, faced an abrupt end to their often life-changing treatments on December 31, 2024.
Despite yet another extension to the programme, which was initially slated to end in 2023, uncertainty remains over whether medical cannabis will be ‘generalised’ as promised by the government and rolled out across the national health service.
It comes as the newly stated Minister of Health, Yannick Neuder, said that he thinks ‘the path to therapeutic cannabis’ needs to be ‘studied’ due to its effectiveness in relieving ‘stubborn pains that are often not relieved by other medications.’
However, given successive governments failure to act on these promises and come forth with a plan for generalisation, which was supposed to be launched in January this year, patients and cannabis advocates remain sceptical.
Furthermore, as part of the announcement detailing the new extension, the ANSM stipulated that it was intended to give patients time to wean themselves off the treatment and seek alternatives.
What happened?
In late December, Business of Cannabis reported that French patient associations had warned that medical cannabis patients could soon face a disruption in treatment as its long-running experiment came to an end with no next steps in place.
France’s medical cannabis ‘experiment’ has now been running since 2021 and was widely expected to act as a precursor to a fully fledged medical cannabis system.
