The Agence du médicament (ANSM) gave Thursday the go-ahead for an experiment in therapeutic cannabis in France according to the framework proposed at the end of June by a group of experts. "After analysis, the ANSM endorses the opinion of the CSST", the committee of experts set up to reflect on the contours of this experiment, said the health authority in a statement. "The overall framework that they pose is a framework from which we can work, their proposals appear good proposals," said AFP Dominique Martin, Director General of the National Agency of Medicine.
Hailing a "remarkably well-done" job, the leader points out that the committee "took the necessary time to listen to each other", in the different dimensions of the file - medical, economic, associative - and did not "lose of time "since his appointment.
No "prescription seal"
The ANSM, which had ended in 2018 an agreement in principle to launch an experiment in therapeutic cannabis in France, had asked this committee to look into the form to be given to this operation. The challenge is that the scale of the experimentation and the quality of the data collected are sufficient to, in the end, judge the relevance of legalization of cannabis for medical purposes.
For this "real-life" test, therapeutic cannabis may be prescribed in patients with "therapeutic stalemate", suffering from certain forms of treatment-resistant epilepsy, neuropathic pain (resulting from nerve damage) not relieved by others. therapies. It can also be used to treat side effects of chemotherapy or for palliative care and uncontrolled muscle contractions of multiple sclerosis or other diseases of the central nervous system.
However, there is no question of "joint prescription": the prescribed products will be inhaled (oil, dried flowers) or ingested (oral solutions, drops and oil capsules). The doctors participating in the experiment will be voluntary and will have to undergo an online training, the modalities of which remain to be determined.