Are tobacconists looking to pre-empt the CBD cannabis flower market?

While raids on stores selling CBD cannabis raged, the launch of the brand Bural'Zen by an association of tobacconists was particularly noteworthy. Twice, the tobacconists then intervened in the parliamentary debate: the first in a letter to Agnès Buzyn, the second during a question in Parliament. Are tobacconists trying to pre-empt the CBD cannabis market?

Contradictions in judicial reactions

The French Minister of Health, Agnès Buzyn, announced on June 17 that stores selling CBD cannabis flowers would soon be closed, following the «MILDECA »clarifies" the law on CBD and cannabis.

Since then, at least 14 stores have been raided. Not all of them have closed, except in Paris, where every search based on the sale of hemp flowers led to prosecutions for drug offences and/or incitement to drug use.

In the provinces, they continue to open, with one of the most recent being in the heart of Marseille.

This double standard can also be seen in the category of businesses targeted: while private entrepreneurs are taking a hit, no tobacconist has been worried by the sale of Bural'Zen, their CBD cannabis brand. Are they less visible or more influential?

Lobbying by tobacconists

Patting Agnès Buzyn on the back, the confédération des buralistes, the organization representing tobacconists emanating from departmental union chambers and regional federations, sent a letter to the minister on June 18. In it, the confederation's president makes a very direct appeal for a monopoly on the sale of «cannabis light,» or even CBD, for the tobacconist network, stating that it is a network experienced in highly regulated products and accustomed to collaborating with the Ministry of Health.

15 days later, Mr. Denis Sommer, République en Marche deputy for Doubs asked. a question along the same lines, He asked, in particular, «whether a legislative framework is planned for the sale of legal cannabis, and what the timeframe is» and «whether it is envisaged that the tobacconist network will be the exclusive distributor of this product». Lobbying or concern? Strangely enough, his question uses the same laudatory arguments as the letter from the tobacconists: the success of the anti-smoking policy, the need for prevention and a drop in income for the tobacconist network, the need for regulation...

According to tobacconists, such a monopoly would be a good thing in view of the losses incurred by the Ministry's anti-smoking campaign. Even if it means prosecuting the hundred or so CBD stores that have opened in the same way as drug dealers, and even terrorists in some cases?