Several amendments tabled to include medical cannabis in the PLFSS 2024

Like we revealed it in two steps last week, several amendments have finally been filed (PDF) in an attempt to include medical cannabis by the back door in the Social Security Financing Bill (PLFSS) for the year 2024. The aim is the same: to make medical cannabis available to all potential patients in France.

The first amendment was tabled by a Renaissance MP, Caroline Janvier, previously rapporteur for the Mission d'informations sur les usages du cannabis. She proposes adding an «ad hoc» status for medical cannabis, i.e. «any medicine derived from cannabis, its plant and resin, products containing them or those obtained from cannabis, its plant or resin produced in accordance with good cultivation practices and good manufacturing practices for medical use in accordance with the provisions relating to medicinal plants [...]».

The production, distribution and reimbursement of medical cannabis would be determined by regulation. Reimbursement would be financed from taxes levied on tobacco, sugar-sweetened beverages and alcoholic beverages, whose annual increase limits would be abolished.

LR MP Yannick Neuder is also proposing the same amendment as Caroline Janvier, a sign of interest shared by the 2 majority parties in the hemicycle and going beyond the usual boundaries of the more minority parties.

Olivier Faure, a member of the French Socialist Party (PS), is proposing «to extend the trial on the use of therapeutic cannabis», so as not to leave patients currently included in the trial without a solution, «before its generalization».

On the LFI side, an amendment tabled by MP Karen Erodi asks that «within six months of the promulgation of this law, the Government [submit] to Parliament a report on the advisability of generalizing the experimentation on the use of medical cannabis» in order to make medical cannabis «truly accessible to treat the 5 pathologies» of the experimentation.

Ecologist Julien Bayou, has submitted an amendment to legalize cannabis for adults. Aurélien Taché presented an amendment from the Fédération Addiction to decriminalize drug use in France.

The fate of the amendments will be decided during the first reading of the PLFSS 2024, which begins on Tuesday October 17, 2023.