Cannabis, which is of limited but real interest in very painful diseases, will it one day become a medicine in France?
The government is pushing back the moment of choice, to the disappointment of patients, certain doctors and elected officials, including the majority.
“We are a bit up against the wall”, regretted Macronist deputy Caroline Janvier on Thursday, not hesitating to criticize the government during a conference in the company of elected officials from various sides – including two Nupes deputies and an LR deputy – , addictologists and patients.
“I really regret that on this subject (…) we hear more from the Ministry of the Interior than the Ministry of Health”, insisted Caroline Janvier.
Cannabis is already authorized in many European countries to ease the pain and anxiety of patients with cancer and other illnesses.
This is also the case in Israel or several American states, while in Japan, a group of government experts has just recommended its authorization.
Round table on the first results and follow-up of the experimentation on therapeutic cannabis, with the patient associations and the doctors who take part in it.
With the deputies present, we agreed on a joint amendment for the #PLF2023 #DirectAN pic.twitter.com/ZsMdTl9jvG
— Caroline January (@CarolineJanvier) October 6, 2022
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A prolonged experiment
France has been considering approving medical cannabis for years.
But this perspective has recently moved away, the government having discreetly decided to extend an "experiment" conducted for almost two years.
This was to end in the spring of 2023 and, potentially, lead to a generalization of the use of medical cannabis, that is to say its possible prescription by all doctors in very specific indications.
But the experiment "will be extended", declared Monday the Minister of Health, François Braun, on the sidelines of a trip to Le Mans, confirming comments made a few days earlier during a hearing at the National Assembly on the draft Social Security budget.
"We do not have the number of patients sufficient to draw conclusions," justified the minister.
3,000 patients expected
Excessive nervousness?
One fact is objective: the experiment, which was to include 3,000 patients, is far from it.
A thousand are missing from the objectives set.
The argument, however, annoys the promoters of medical cannabis, including several patient associations as well as doctors, often addictologists.
They note that the experiment is not intended to prove the therapeutic validity of medical cannabis, but to show that its use is possible on a large scale in the French health system.
"It's arbitrary, 3,000, it's a financial calibration", swept away, during Thursday's conference, the psychiatrist Nicolas Authier, who is scientifically piloting the experiment under the aegis of the drug agency (ANSM) .
The medical debate persists
Like other doctors, Nicolas Authier considers the medical interest of cannabis well established, and therefore more to discuss.
This consensus is not total.
The Academy of Pharmacy, followed by that of Medicine, has regularly criticized this experiment, believing that it took the therapeutic benefits of cannabis a little too much for granted.
Research supports these benefits to some extent.
The main reference study, published last year in the
British Medical Journal
(BMJ) and carried out from many other works, concluded that medical cannabis allows a "limited" or "very limited" improvement in pain or sleep in patients with chronic pain, noting however frequent side effects.
“A form of taboo”
“We did not say that we had discovered a miracle (or) that we are going to give cannabis-based drugs to everyone,” nuanced Nicolas Authier.
“These are drugs that are used (…) when medicine does not work but the suffering is there”.
For some doctors or elected officials, the government's hesitations obey less to medical considerations than to a lack of political courage, Caroline Janvier evoking "a form of taboo" linked to the much broader debates on the legalization of cannabis in general.
But the pressures on the government are not only in this area, they also come from - future - French cannabis producers.
"The conditions do not seem to be met at the moment to allow patients access to cannabis-based medicines", regretted last week the organization Santé France Cannabis, bringing together the main players in the sector, referring the responsibility to the "absence of a clear framework" posed by the authorities to the production of cannabis.
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