France is thinking about legalizing medical marijuana. But just to make sure that giving people legal access to an herb specifically for its therapeutic function will not cause some twisted upheaval to the social order, the country plans to conduct a medicinal cannabis experiment in the near future that will continue for the next couple of years.<\/p>\n
At the end of May, the French Senate approved marijuana for medicinal use. It is a move that is expected to give somewhere between 30,000 to 1 million patients suffering from severe pain the ability to purchase the herb. But rather than enter into its new medical marijuana program blindly, government officials are going to try ironing out all of the unknowns before the first patient walks through the door.<\/p>\n
The country intends to use this deep exploration into the cannabis sect to learn more about how the industry itself will work, as well as identify any opportunities to expand the proposed list of qualified conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will be about two years of experimentation with therapeutic cannabis,\u201d Professor Nicolas Authier, the leading pharmacologist at Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital Centre\u2019s pain clinic,\u00a0told FRANCE 24<\/a>.<\/p>\n All that is left before this research gets underway is final approval from the Health Ministry.<\/p>\n It should be pointed out, however, that France\u2019s medical marijuana program is going to be fairly restrictive, at least in the beginning. So don\u2019t expect to see marijuana sold in those\u00a0Parisian coffee shops<\/a>.<\/p>\n Last December, a scientific committee controlled by the French National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health recommended that medical marijuana be approved for some patients as an alternative to traditional treatments. On paper, this cleared patients with\u00a0chronic pain<\/a>\u00a0that are unresponsive to existing therapies, certain kinds of epilepsy, and multiple sclerosis for the use of medicinal cannabis. The committee also designated access for cancer patients and a few others.<\/p>\n It was expected, at the time, that legislative action would eventually unfold as a result of the committee\u2019s assessment. The fact that it only took six months to get some kind of medical marijuana program endorsed by lawmakers is a relatively decent sign that the country is at least open to the concept of cannabis medicine.<\/p>\n As of now, patients in France can only get their hands on Marinol (synthetic THC) and a drug manufactured by\u00a0GW Pharmaceuticals<\/a>\u00a0known as Sativex. These drugs are often prescribed to cancer patients as a means for control vomiting that stems from chemotherapy treatment and neuropathic pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.<\/p>\n Unlike the majority of the medical marijuana sold in the United States, officials in France say their version of the herb will not be something that recreational users would appreciate. The country is apparently set to produce a lower-strength strain for this program. It will be so weak, in fact, that Authier says it will not \u201csatisfy those looking for psychoactive effects.\u201d We know, this is bad news for those\u00a0hooligan vapers<\/a>.<\/p>\n Authier went on to explain that medical marijuana will not be a one-size fits all sort of development. All of the medicine will be customized according to the patient\u2019s needs. \u201cFor now, we are talking about medical cannabis, but eventually we will have to consider wellness cannabis [oils, vitamins and supplements with very low levels of THC],\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Although France will launch its own cultivation centers for this fact-finding mission, the cannabis products used in the beginning of this process will most likely be imported from other countries. Authier admits that the country has a lot to learn about growing weed. \u201cIt isn\u2019t conventional agriculture,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The experiment is set to get underway in the coming weeks, according to Jean-Baptiste Moreau \u2014 an MP representing France\u2019s La R\u00e9publique En Marche!<\/a>\u00a0party. \u00a0But it is going to be a long road before marijuana goes legal.<\/p>\n \u201cThe question of legalization won\u2019t come up before 2021, and only following this experiment,\u201d Authier said.<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, do you support France\u2019s gradual approach to medical marijuana?\u00a0<\/p>\n The post France Set to Launch a Medical Marijuana Experiment<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
France is thinking about legalizing medical marijuana. But just to make sure that giving people legal access to an herb specifically for its therapeutic function will not cause some twisted upheaval to the social order, the country plans to conduct a medicinal cannabis experiment in the near future that willContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,2273,3157,53,415,4318,10188],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35801"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35802,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35801\/revisions\/35802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A Wide Spectrum of Conditions<\/h4>\n
Customized Strains for Medical Customers<\/h4>\n
\n
\nRead More: France Set to Launch a Medical Marijuana Experiment<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"