The two «diet cannabis» trials in Reims: half-hearted victories

Three stores, three lawsuits, an acquittal and a ruling that the proceedings were invalid: in Reims, the debate over hemp-derived products is in full swing, and it appears that the court does not approve of it the government's position. In fact, in two out of three cases so far, the Reims court has ruled in favor of the defendants, though without explicitly addressing the legality of the products.

No mercy

In the city of Reims, three businesses selling hemp-derived products were raided by police, and their products were seized for analysis. «In July, the Ministry of Justice had instructed us to take a firm stance on this issue,» explained Reims District Attorney Matthieu Bourrette, in the regional newspaper L’Union. Here, he is referring to the press release from the Directorate of Criminal Affairs and Pardons (DACG).

The first trial involved a father and his daughter—the manager and an employee, respectively, of a bar and tobacco shop—who were selling bags of «light cannabis». «I’d heard of CBD, and when someone came to offer it to us and assured us it was legal, I thought we could make some money off of it,» the young woman explained during the trial. In total, they allegedly sold 73 packets at 14 euros each during the first three weeks of July. They were charged with drug trafficking.

The second trial concerns the store Herb Secret’s, whose two managers and one employee were taken into police custody and then placed under judicial supervision the very next day after the store opened. Among other items, they sold candy, cooking oils, e-liquids, and CBD-based herbal teas. Their entire inventory was seized for analysis in July 2018. The same occurred at another store located in Tinqueux, a suburb of Reims, where the trial has not yet concluded.

Mixed verdicts

During the trial of the tobacco shop owners in February, the prosecutor had sought a four-month suspended prison sentence and a 1,500-euro fine for each of the defendants, as well as a three-year ban on practicing their profession. However, they were acquitted. The prosecution appealed this verdict, this time seeking a suspended prison sentence only for the father and a fine for both. The defendants’ attorney, Fanny Quentin, successfully argued that the offense was not intentional, and the acquittal was upheld in May by the Court of Appeals.

As Maître Gilles Boin, an attorney at The trial of the managers, who were also acquitted According to the Organiquement Votre hemp store, under criminal law, an offense is valid only if it is intentional. If this is not the case, there is no basis for a trial. In this case, the Reims court ruled that the defendants were unaware that their actions were illegal. Consequently, it did not take a position on the legality of the actions themselves.

Regarding the three defendants from the store Herb Secret’s, As for them, they were released on Monday without even having been tried. The Reims Criminal Court ruled that their detention in police custody was invalid and, consequently, so were all subsequent proceedings—the prosecutor’s office has not yet filed an appeal, but it still has about ten days to do so. This is a procedural defect, another legal ground the court can invoke to avoid ruling directly on the substantive issue, which is the legality of hemp-derived products containing less than 0.2% of THC.

Thus, the Reims court does not take a position on the issue but appears to acknowledge that the law is unclear and therefore cannot serve as a basis for convictions. As explained by attorney Ingrid Metton, who specializes in this type of case, the prosecutions against CBD store owners in France are all based on the order of August 22, 1990. «In our view, this article isn’t clear enough, since it’s unclear what this restriction on fibers and seeds applies to, and above all, it’s unclear what this 0.2 % THC threshold applies to. Does it apply to cannabis strains or to the finished product?» she explains to *L'Union*. Given the lack of a legal basis for the ban, an increasing number of courts refrain from convicting the defendants.