France

France has taken a key step toward legalizing medical cannabis by formally notifying the European Commission of its plans to legalize and regulate the practice.

French health officials recently extended the country’s experimental medical cannabis provisions with the stated goal of giving patients participating in the program extra time to taper their cannabis consumption or find alternatives.

The Constitutional Council of France ruled that CBD is not addictive or harmful, overturning a ban on the possession, use, and sale of CBD put in place in December.

France is launching a two-year medical cannabis experiment involving 3,000 registered patients.

The French government has launched a public consultation to ask citizens about their views on cannabis legalization and to determine which government policies the people would prefer.

In France, 80 members of Parliament have signed a letter decrying cannabis legalization. The letter hinges on tired, prohibition-era tropes including slippery slope fallacies and the disproven “gateway drug” theory.

A group of thieves in France was caught stealing plants from an industrial hemp farm in the belief they were getting THC-rich cannabis.

A European Court of Justice magistrate has ruled that EU member states cannot ban imported CBD products because the law does not consider the cannabinoid to be a narcotic drug.