The Minister of Health Agnès Buzyn announced this Thursday on France Inter that she had launched the debate around cannabis for therapeutic use with the institutions responsible for the development of drugs.
“France has fallen behind in research on medical cannabis. There is no reason to exclude cannabis to treat this pain. It could happen in France,” said Agnès Buzyn on Thursday on France Inter. While a dozen countries of the European Union and several states of the United States have legalized the use of medical cannabis, France seems to be moving, slowly but surely, towards the same goal.
The Minister of Health has in any case affirmed that she had launched “the debate” with the institutions responsible for the development of drugs. “I asked the various institutions that assess drugs to give me the state of knowledge on the subject, because there is no reason to exclude, on the pretext that it is cannabis, a molecule which can be of interest for the treatment of certain very debilitating pains, ”she explained. And to continue: “I cannot tell you how quickly we are going to develop it, but in any case, I am opening the debate with the institutions responsible for this development”. The file is therefore on the table of the Ministry of Health.
The Ethics and Cancer Committee in full swing reflection
This announcement comes after a recent referral from a patient on the “unethical” nature of the prohibition of cannabis in a therapeutic context. The Ethics and Cancer Committee should also soon examine this question. Currently in France, only one cannabinoid drug has a marketing authorization: Sativex, recommended against spasticity and multiple sclerosis.
Dronabinol and cannabidiol, used for patients with neuropathic pain refractory to conventional treatments or epilepsy, are available, but only with a temporary authorization by name (procedure allowing certain patients to be made available to a medicinal product without marketing authorization and not subject to a clinical trial in this indication).
Scientific data on therapeutic cannabis
The debate is complex, especially since scientific data is lacking on the therapeutic use of cannabis. In the United States, where its use is authorized in some states, nearly half of oncologists tell their patients about the use of marijuana for therapeutic purposes without being sufficiently informed about the subject, according to a news report. study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. 80% of oncologists surveyed said they had already discussed the issue of medical cannabis with their patients, but less than 30% felt they had enough scientific data to make such recommendations.
“The scientific evidence supporting the use of medical marijuana in oncology is still very thin, which puts physicians in a very uncomfortable position,” said Dr Ilana Braun of the Dana-Farber Institute of Adult Psychosocial Oncology. So far, no randomized clinical trials have looked at the effects of medical marijuana in cancer patients, other than its effects on nausea, so oncologists only rely on research on the use of cannabis for medical purposes in the treatment of diseases other than cancer.
The use of cannabis, whether recreational or medical, is the subject of a long debate in France that Pourquoi Docteur has always followed. Prof. Amine Benyamina, head of department at Paul-Brousse hospital and brilliant clinician specializing in addiction medicine, was the guest of our program “From recreational cannabis to games: the new faces of addiction”.
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