Medical cannabis is arriving in France: to mark the launch of its experiment, the Minister of Health Olivier Véran will go this Friday to the Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital for
“the first prescription”
of this drug, indicate his services.
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Much awaited by patient associations, the experiment will last two years and will eventually concern 3,000 patients.
The first prescription is planned in the service of Prof. Nicolas Authier of the Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital (Puy-de-Dôme), president of the temporary scientific committee on cannabis for medical use.
"The actual deployment will take place from Monday"
in other referral hospitals where specialist doctors (pain, oncology, neurology, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, palliative care) have already been trained, indicates Nathalie Richard, director of the medical Cannabis project at the ANSM Medicines Agency.
Some 200 reference centers in 170 hospitals are involved in the experiment.
A map making it possible to identify these structures carrying out the consultations as well as the pathologies concerned will be published on Friday afternoon, according to the ANSM.
The first consultation must be done in one of these reference centers, with patients already followed in these specialized hospital services or referred by their attending physician.
The decision to include or not the patient is up to the doctors of the referral centers.
Patients are eligible if they suffer from serious illnesses: certain forms of epilepsy, neuropathic pain, side effects of chemotherapy, palliative care situations or certain pain of multiple sclerosis.
But only
"in case of insufficient relief or poor tolerance"
with already existing treatments, according to the ANSM.
Children may be included, in particular for forms of epilepsy refractory to treatment or in oncology.
Oil or dried flowers
These drugs, imported, in the form of oral oil (in bottles of drinkable solutions) or dried flowers by inhalation using a vaporizer will be available in different dosages of the active substances - tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD).
The provision of dried flowers will be
"rather in June"
time to have the vaporization system associated with them, according to Nathalie Richard.
The prescription, initially in a hospital department, will be made on a secure prescription (for a maximum of 28 days), as for any narcotic among which cannabis, illegal in France, is stored.
A general practitioner, trained and voluntary, can take over.
Patients' consent to this trial, which will enable the first French data to be collected on the efficacy and safety of medical cannabis, results in their registration in a follow-up register.
Cannabis for smoking is excluded from the protocol.
The Covid-19 epidemic contributed to delaying the launch of this experiment, authorized by an October 2020 decree specifying that it was to start before the end of March 2021.