Experimentation with medical cannabis to begin no later than March 31, 2021

At a press briefing yesterday, the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) announced that trials of therapeutic cannabis «will begin no later than March 31».

The experiment will run for 2 years from launch, after which the initial work started in september 2018.

Final steps before launch

After selecting cannabis suppliers or medical cannabis-based products last January, there are still a number of steps to be taken before the experiment can be launched, including training healthcare professionals, providing the ANSM with a patient monitoring register and supplying pharmacies with cannabis.

The patient pathway, as well as the inclusion and non-inclusion criteria for each of the selected therapeutic indications, must also be specified. Training is now available to doctors and pharmacists at the 200 volunteer referral facilities where patients taking part in the trial will be included.

The list of these 200 reference structures, selected by ANSM and providing at least one of the five selected therapeutic indications will soon be available online, along with tools and documents for the healthcare professionals who will be monitoring the patients included throughout the trial.

ANSM will continue its work throughout the trial, monitoring and analyzing registry data on prescribing and dispensing procedures, as well as real-life efficacy and safety data.

A report will be submitted to Parliament 6 months before the end of the experiment to determine whether medical cannabis can be made widely available and, if so, under what conditions.