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Cannabeginners: How to Legally Use Cannabis in France
The French may like wine, but cannabis is complicated.
While world-renowned hashmaker Frenchy Cannoli may have been a true cannabis evangelist, educating the masses on how to make high quality hash, unfortunately, the country he hailed from, France, has very different views of cannabis. Seeing how restrictive French laws on cannabis have been until very recently, it is no wonder that Frenchy left his home for greener pastures and greener buds in other countries. Read on to learn the basics of cannabis in France before your next visit to Paris.
Drug Trafficking
Before getting into French cannabis laws, a word on drug trafficking. In France, like most countries, a person bringing drugs into the country on a plane can be charged with drug trafficking. A law that went into effect in 2020 was a small step towards decriminalizing cannabis possession, so long as it is less than 50 grams (roughly two ounces), there is a chance to pay a fine and avoid jail time, but it is still a criminal offense.
Nascent Medical Cannabis Industry
France began their experiments with medical cannabis in 2021, with a two-year pilot study of 3,000 patients. Given the success of their ongoing pilot study, it is no surprise that on March 1st, 2022, the French government issued a decree legalizing medical cannabis. Specifically, the decree amended the French Public Health Code allowing for the legal cultivation, production/manufacture, transportation (including import/exporting), and possession of cannabis for medical use.
That decree will lead to the birth of a French medical cannabis industry, but only once it is implemented and the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) establishes the supply chain. The ANSM must also create the 11 member committee who will serve an advisory role on a number of aspects relating to medical cannabis, such as track and trace, approved methods of ingestion, and identification of cultivars.
No Medical Cannabis Reciprocity
As the medical cannabis industry in France is still in its infancy, there are no regulations that currently allow for what is known as medical cannabis reciprocity, in other words, one state or country honoring another state or country’s medical cannabis recommendation. That means that even if you have a medical cannabis recommendation that is valid another country (Canada, Germany, Israel, United States, etc.) it will not help you legally purchase or use cannabis in France. Time will tell if France will allow for some sort of reciprocity for medical cannabis patients.
Limited Progress Towards Full Legalization
France is widely regarded as having some of the most restrictive cannabis laws in Europe and while they have very recently come to embrace medical cannabis, it is moving slowly and the government is generally opposed to legalization. Like the United States, despite very restrictive cannabis laws, France’s Interior Ministry notes that it “has Europe’s second-highest consumption levels with around 900,000 daily cannabis users.” As a fellow member of the European Union, France is watching their neighbor Germany, and French Health Minister François Braun says they “will closely monitor the evolution of the German legislative framework, especially with regard to its potential impact on cross-border regions.” Frustratingly, while the United States and much of the world is trending in a positive direction on cannabis, with legalization happening fairly rapidly, things have stalled in France at the early onset of medical legalization.
A June 2021 poll by the Institut français d’opinion publique showed that 51% of French people wanted to see cannabis decriminalized, the highest percentage since the 1970s when it was first made illegal. Other survey data indicates that past year use rates and lifetime use rates in France were comparable to those of the U.S., with nearly half of the country reporting some cannabis use in their lifetime and over 10% reporting use in the past year.
CBD Flower Was Recently Legalized
With no adult use legalization in France, and no medical cannabis reciprocity, there is no legal way to consume THC-rich cannabis in France. Thankfully, the French Council of State (the French equivalent to the Supreme Court) overturned their ban on CBD-rich flower at the end of last year, allowing for the creation of a French CBD industry. That means Parisian tourists can soon be enjoying CBD-rich cannabis products, including flower. Time will tell if CBD-infused french wine and cheese will be on the menu any time soon.
Disproportionate Targeting of Muslims
Like in the U.S., the enforcement of drug laws in France has disproportionately targeted some minority groups, specifically, Muslims. Professor David Guba ran the numbers, and despite only 9% of France’s population being Muslim, the data suggests “that up to 1 in 6 prisoners in France today may be an Arab Muslim man who used, possessed or sold cannabis.”
Source: https://hightimes.com/culture/cannabeginners-how-to-legally-use-cannabis-in-france/
New Mexico regulators fined a cannabis operator nearly $300,000 and revoked its license after the company allegedly created fake reports in the state’s traceability software.
The New Mexico Cannabis Control Division (CCD) accused marijuana manufacturer and retailer Golden Roots of 11 violations, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Golden Roots operates the The Cannabis Revolution Dispensary.
The majority of the violations are related to the Albuquerque company’s improper use of BioTrack, which has been New Mexico’s track-and-trace vendor since 2015.
The CCD alleges Golden Roots reported marijuana production only two months after it had received its vertically integrated license, according to Albuquerque Business First.
Because cannabis takes longer than two months to be cultivated, the CCD was suspicious of the report.
After inspecting the company’s premises, the CCD alleged Golden Roots reported cultivation, transportation and sales in BioTrack but wasn’t able to provide officers who inspected the site evidence that the operator was cultivating cannabis.
In April, the CCD revoked Golden Roots’ license and issued a $10,000 fine, according to the news outlet.
The company requested a hearing, which the regulator scheduled for Sept. 1.
At the hearing, the CCD testified that the company’s dried-cannabis weights in BioTrack were suspicious because they didn’t seem to accurately reflect how much weight marijuana loses as it dries.
Company employees also poorly accounted for why they were making adjustments in the system of up to 24 pounds of cannabis, making comments such as “bad” or “mistake” in the software, Albuquerque Business First reported.
Golden Roots was fined $298,972.05 – the amount regulators allege the company made selling products that weren’t properly accounted for in BioTrack.
The CCD has been cracking down on cannabis operators accused of selling products procured from out-of-state or not grown legally:
- Regulators alleged in August that Albuquerque dispensary Sawmill Sweet Leaf sold out-of-state products and didn’t have a license for extraction.
- Paradise Exotics Distro lost its license in July after regulators alleged the company sold products made in California.
Golden Roots was the first alleged rulebreaker in New Mexico to be asked to pay a large fine.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/new-mexico-cannabis-operator-fined-loses-license-for-alleged-biotrack-fraud/
Four marijuana companies, including a multistate operator, have filed a lawsuit against U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in which they allege the federal MJ prohibition under the Controlled Substances Act is no longer constitutional.
According to the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, retailer Canna Provisions, Treevit delivery service CEO Gyasi Sellers, cultivator Wiseacre Farm and MSO Verano Holdings Corp. are all harmed by “the federal government’s unconstitutional ban on cultivating, manufacturing, distributing, or possessing intrastate marijuana.”
Verano is headquartered in Chicago but has operations in Massachusetts; the other three operators are based in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit seeks a ruling that the “Controlled Substances Act is unconstitutional as applied to the intrastate cultivation, manufacture, possession, and distribution of marijuana pursuant to state law.”
The companies want the case to go before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They hired prominent law firm Boies Schiller Flexner to represent them.
The New York-based firm’s principal is David Boies, whose former clients include Microsoft, former presidential candidate Al Gore and Elizabeth Holmes’ disgraced startup Theranos.
Similar challenges to the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA) have failed.
One such challenge led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2005.
In Gonzalez vs. Raich, the highest court in the United States ruled in a 6-3 decision that the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to outlaw marijuana federally, even though state laws allow the cultivation and sale of cannabis.
In the 18 years since that ruling, 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized adult-use marijuana and the federal government has allowed a multibillion-dollar cannabis industry to thrive.
Since both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice, currently headed by Garland, have declined to intervene in state-licensed marijuana markets, the key facts that led to the Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling “no longer apply,” Boies said in a statement Thursday.
“The Supreme Court has since made clear that the federal government lacks the authority to regulate purely intrastate commerce,” Boies said.
“Moreover, the facts on which those precedents are based are no longer true.”
Verano President Darren Weiss said in a statement the company is “prepared to bring this case all the way to the Supreme Court in order to align federal law with how Congress has acted for years.”
While the Biden administration’s push to reschedule marijuana would help solve marijuana operators’ federal tax woes, neither rescheduling nor modest Congressional reforms such as the SAFER Banking Act “solve the fundamental issue,” Weiss added.
“The application of the CSA to lawful state-run cannabis business is an unconstitutional overreach on state sovereignty that has led to decades of harm, failed businesses, lost jobs, and unsafe working conditions.”
Alabama regulators are targeting Dec. 1 to award the first batch of medical cannabis business licenses after the agency’s first two attempts were scrapped because of scoring errors and litigation.
The first licenses will be awarded to individual cultivators, delivery providers, processors, dispensaries and state testing labs, according to the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC).
Then, on Dec. 12, the AMCC will award licenses for vertically integrated operations, a designation set primarily for multistate operators.
Licenses are expected to be handed out 28 days after they have been awarded, so MMJ production could begin in early January, according to the Alabama Daily News.
That means MMJ products could be available for patients around early March, an AMCC spokesperson told the media outlet.
Regulators initially awarded 21 business licenses in June, only to void them after applicants alleged inconsistencies with how the applications were scored.
Then, in August, the state awarded 24 different licenses – 19 went to June recipients – only to reverse themselves again and scratch those licenses after spurned applicants filed lawsuits.
A state judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Chicago-based MSO Verano Holdings Corp., but another lawsuit is pending.
Source: https://mjbizdaily.com/alabama-plans-to-award-medical-cannabis-licenses-dec-1/
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