French medical cannabis remains stalled at the Ministry of Health

Just as France seemed to be finally moving toward the effective implementation of medical cannabis, the issue appears to have stalled once again. Several months after the most recent regulatory advances, the final regulations needed to launch the program remain pending, with no timeline or official explanation.

Before summer, the latest decree governing medical cannabis was to be forwarded to the Council of State for review. Since then, there has been radio silence. To date, no decision or publication has been made available that would provide any indication of the progress of their review.

Since the Council of State does not, as a rule, provide information on regulatory texts currently under review, this lack of information is not unusual in and of itself. However, it makes it particularly difficult to determine the actual status of the matter. Even more problematic: Newsweed has been unable to confirm that the decrees reported to have been submitted to the Council of State were in fact sent to it.

When contacted by Newsweed, the Ministry of Health and several sources involved in or familiar with the matter had not responded to our inquiries as of the time of this article’s publication.

A final stage that seems to drag on forever

This situation continues a a story that is now familiar to the patients involved. After several years of piloting medical cannabis, the Council of State’s review of the decree establishing the rules for reimbursement of cannabis-based medications is therefore one of the final steps before the texts are published in the Official Journal. However, this is contingent on the draft decrees having actually been submitted to the Council of State and on their review being successfully completed.

At this time, there is no publicly announced timeline indicating when this milestone might be reached.

The lack of visibility is all the more noticeable given that the The French medical cannabis initiative has been repeatedly delayed. Since the pilot program ended, patients, healthcare professionals, and companies in the sector have been waiting for the transition to a permanent system—one that has been regularly announced but never fully implemented.

It is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of the current impasse, but some would attribute it this time directly to the Ministry of Health, which is reportedly reluctant to legalize the medical use of cannabis while the government is making the fight against drug trafficking a priority. If you don’t see the connection, neither do we, but the word «cannabis» would be enough to rile up certain people enough to deny medical treatment to 300,000 people who have reached a therapeutic dead end.

One thing is certain: the silence surrounding this matter is currently fueling uncertainty. The ministry could, at the very least, confirm that the documents have been submitted and specify the next administrative step in the process. It has not done so despite our (repeated) requests.

Patients Still Waiting

Behind these regulatory deadlines are, above all, the patients. The French trial, launched in 2021, was intended, among other things, to evaluate under real-world conditions the procedures for prescribing and dispensing cannabis-based medications to patients with serious conditions for whom no other treatment options are available.

Five years later, the question is therefore no longer really whether France can provide access to medical cannabis: it has already done so, with overwhelmingly positive results. The challenge now is to transform this pilot program into a sustainable and accessible system.

On paper, the regulatory process is nearing completion. In reality, the final stretch seems, once again, to be the longest.

And until the Ministry of Health specifies exactly where the latest decrees are located, a question as simple as it is essential will remain unanswered: Are the documents actually on the Council of State’s desk, or are they still waiting to leave the Ministry’s office?