16/09/2024
Aurélien BERNARD
Legalization of medical cannabis in France likely to be postponed until 2026
Will France manage to legalize medical cannabis? While the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines (ANSM) assured at the beginning of the year that cannabis treatments would be available in 2025 , the generalization of medical cannabis in France will be difficult before 2026.
In order to meet the deadline imposed by law, namely authorisations issued for medicines before 31 December 2024, France should have notified the entry into common law of the production and distribution of cannabis-based medicines to the European Commission (EC) in the first half of 2024.
According to our information, everything was ready before the summer holidays, even though the dissolution of the National Assembly was enacted, without this disrupting the process, we were told. The possibilities of having flowers in secure cartridges to vaporize for patients and to export for manufacturers had even been the subject of arbitration.
The holidays having passed, we learned that new arbitrations had taken place on the project, which had already been validated, in particular on the part of Mildeca. Furthermore, the General Directorate of Health (DGS) explained to us that “in the context of managing current affairs”, the notification could not be made.
