The Marseille entrepreneurs of Kanavape have just been sentenced. The reason ? Their creation: an electronic cigarette with cannabidiol. However, a legal vagueness remains around the object.
Smoking joints while vaping, this is the objective of the Marseille-based company Kanavape. Justice seized on the subject by condemning the two creators last Monday to 18 months and 15 months in prison. The imprisonment is accompanied by a fine of 10,000 euros and 5,000 euros in damages to the Council of the Order of Pharmacists, which had become a civil party.
However, the sales arguments were intended to be reassuring for the consumer. Indeed, Sébastien Begueri and Antonin Cohen, the two convicts, presented their first hemp e-cigarettes as being “100% legal”.
What prompted justice to take up the case was the promotion of Kanavape. The franchise went so far as to boast of a health benefit provided by the product without having obtained any validation from the country’s medical authorities.
A legal vagueness around cannabidiol
The dispute comes from the Ministry of Health. Agnès Buzyn called the sale of electronic seals legal as long as it did not exceed the threshold of 0.2% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). THC is the psychostimulant molecule contained in cannabis, it acts on the brain as well as on the organs. Perception, motor skills, emotionality and satiety are disturbed by its consumption.
However, the entrepreneurs defended themselves by explaining that they were selling cannabidiol, another component of hemp. If it alters vigilance, it does not however cause psychoactive effects and a certain vagueness surrounds this molecule which can be considered as a drug.
Everyone knows it’s an electronic seal, but the file is legally questionable. Faced with this legal vagueness, it is therefore the complaint of the Council of the Order of Pharmacists which leads to this conviction. Let’s not forget that Al Capone has never been convicted of his crimes, but only for tax evasion.
.
