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While experimentation with therapeutic cannabis is underway in France, a scientific committee has just been set up by the drug safety agency for the creation of a French sector for the cultivation of this plant and the development of treatments.
While therapeutic cannabis is currently being tested on 3,000 patients in France, the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) has just set up a scientific committee responsible for defining the rules applicable to this culture in France and any treatments that may be made from this plant. Indeed, at present, the therapeutic cannabis used by patients in France is imported from several countries (Canada, Australia and Portugal).
A committee meeting for four months
Composed of representatives of the Ministries of Health, Agriculture, Economy and Interior, the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) and the Council of the Order of Pharmacists (CNOP), this committee has four months to reflect “to the specifications of the production chain, from the plant to the drug”.
Its main objective is to specify which plants can be cultivated and to define the content of these molecules specific to cannabis, namely tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which gives it its psychotropic effects, and cannabidiol (CBD), without narcotic effect.
Therapeutic cannabis reserved for the seriously ill
The scientific committee also plans to study the traceability standards for these plants and the drugs that will result from them, their pharmaceutical quality criteria and also the controls that will be put in place on the cultivation sites.
Finally, it should be remembered that drugs based on therapeutic cannabis will be reserved for patients with serious pathologies, such as certain forms of epilepsy, neuropathic pain, side effects of chemotherapy, multiple sclerosis or in palliative care, in only cases failure of existing treatments.
France is late on the issue
Asked about therapeutic cannabis, Dr Joachim Mullner, psychiatrist at the Hôtel-Dieu in Paris, explains that France “is experiencing a significant delay on the question of the legalization of this substance. “While many other countries have legalized the use of cannabis, without an explosion in consumption, as in Holland or Portugal. In France, a repressive legal system is favored which costs more than a care network where consumers would be supervised in their use. France is behind in this area, as well as in its therapeutic use” complains the doctor. “In psychiatry, CBD is used for anxiolytic purposes, but it is not directly prescribed as such. However, we can discuss with some patients the interest of its consumption” he specifies.