In the skin of information. What you need to know about medical cannabis

For a little over two years, in France, the health authorities have been experimenting with the introduction of medical cannabis. Some 2,700 patients have been able to access different treatments: people with epilepsy, neuropathic pain, multiple sclerosis or cancer… They are treated, not thanks to smoked joints, of course, but thanks to the bottle cannabis oil or with inhaled hemp flowers without combustion.

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Launched in 2021, this experiment was to put in place the conditions for doctors to be able to prescribe therapeutic cannabis, as is the case in 22 European countries. However, at the beginning of the year 2023, the health authorities considered that they were ultimately not ready. They therefore extended the experiment for another year. The patients had then expressed their disappointment without filter.

From now on, the experimentation is directly threatened: the bottle of cannabis is out of stock. The drug agency, ANSM, announced in a letter sent to stakeholders that CBD 50 mg / ml, the most prescribed treatment in the context of the experiment, is running out. Dozens of patients may simply have to stop the experiment. The treatments still available contain CBD and THC. However, epileptics, for example, cannot take THC treatment at all. It is therefore all the experimentation which would be threatened according to the medical team which pilots it.