The honeymoon did not last. In December, Jules (not his real name), 28, immediately "fell in love" with HHC, the new legal joint with a calming effect. "A friend had some on him, I shot it and I thought it was amazing! It soothes the mind without creating fatigue, paranoia, or mood swings, "describes this actor who has just crushed one.
But on Monday, the Minister of Health sounded the end of recess. On France Info, François Braun announced the probable ban on products based on hexahydrocannabinol (HHC), a molecule derived from cannabis, currently over-the-counter, due to a legal loophole. A "matter of weeks", he said, while "advising" this product, responsible for a "strong addiction".
This tightening of the screws does not surprise Jules, who tackles a "conservative country". Until now, he had found the parade to smoke it in London (United Kingdom), where he lives. Buy it in France and cross the border with 40 grams in your suitcase. And now? "It's forbidden in England but I'm going to try, thanks to the Internet, to have it delivered to my home."
Is HHC a narcotic?
For several months, this cousin of cannabis has been a dazzling success in France. On sale in the form of resin, plant, oil, sweets in electronic cigarette stores and even in tobacconists. "This is the first time that a synthetic drug has experienced such a force of diffusion by relying on a legal market. This is the most worrying, "reacts the professor of pharmacology Nicolas Authier, who welcomes the "position" of the Ministry of Health. Because this substance, easily manufactured in the laboratory from CBD, another molecule to which hydrogen is added, has a structure very close to THC, at the origin of the high effect.
Today, however, no clinical studies have been carried out on HHC. Joëlle Micallef, pharmacologist at the University of Aix Marseille University, considers "reassuring this awareness at the highest level of the State": "We are in an extremely demanding society on health and we would let spread a product whose effects on the body we do not know?" tackles the doctor, wind standing against the current "aggressive marketing strategy" in order to "disseminate as much as possible" this cousin of cannabis in France.
VIDEO. "In half an hour you're on Pluto!": HHC, this synthetic cannabis sold legally is a hit
Experts are unanimous: banning it makes sense. "But we need proof of its dangerousness," says addictologist William Lowenstein, skeptical despite the "laudable" intention of the Ministry of Health. Is HHC a narcotic? It will be up to the Agency for the Safety of Medicines to decide.
The news should put a blow on the head to e-cigarette stores that surf the trend. In a Parisian shop, a manager acknowledges that HHC is a hit mainly among men, from 30 to 70 years old, now anxious to buy cannabis without going through a dealer. But he's not worried about his turnover. With a smile, he slips: "We intend to fall back on the new molecules that arrive, H4CBD and THCP. And continue to sell everything that will be legal. Or rather, not prohibited. »