Delayed French Medical Cannabis Pilot Programme Planned for Q3 Launch

Cannabis, popularly known as marijuana, owes its popularity to many rap videos and dank movies. Apart from the relatively known recreational purposes, cannabis has major medical effects. It’s a psycho active drug and its derivatives are used to create medicines treating nausea and vomiting caused as a result of chemotherapy. Around the world, there have been talks of legalizing cannabis and its use and many countries have already taken this step. Following in the steps of countries such as Canada, South Africa, Georgia, and Uruguay, France also announced to commercialize the medical cannabis. This was announced back in 2019 but the project hit a delay and it’s now due to start in September of 2020.

For those of you who don’t know, consumer market value for cannabis in France stands at approximately € 9,437, 336,621. The program is basically a pilot project that has a total runtime of around 2 years. Approach will be a multidisciplinary one and would be divided into two phases. In the first phase, patients who would benefit the most would be identified. Second phase would be made up of localizing and locating specialist doctors, hospitals, and other clinicians. Extensive training would be required for doctors and administrative staff to ensure complete involvement with the project.

Criteria has been defined for selection of patients. The first criterion would include selection of those patients who have failed to respond to any other therapeutic options in wake of their chronic conditions. The other one would be selection of patients based on indications of epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, palliative care, late stage cancer, and chronic pain. To be honest, it isn’t that simple. Experts believe that as many as 30,000 people could benefit from this study. The cost for provision of medical cannabis would be bore by companies who have not yet been named. However, one should know that the cost is around €12 million — for initial stage.

Pharmaceutical companies in France are divided over this project as they think it can have detrimental effect on already strict imbursement regulations. In France, medical reimbursement is a complicated procedure and for cannabis setups to just get a free ticket is not making other pharmaceutical companies any happier. This is a current topic for debate and most, if not all, are opposing this notion. Well, you should also know that once the pilot is completed after two years, next step would be to send the study to parliament for further debate and approval. Here’s another catch and it’s the fact that for the period of pilot, companies providing the cannabis can import it. However, once the project is completed and becomes government approved then it will not be the same. Government will expect for cannabis to be cultivated and processed in France.

It seems as if France pharma has found itself in some sort of conundrum. It’s not easy to make a decision but it’s debatable. French government has made regulatory authorities to look over the matter but all of this is going to take time — The pilot project, analysis, and implementation. So there’s plenty of time to think this through. Let’s pray and hope that this turns out to benefit many who have not found serenity in multiple other options.

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