At the start of 2020, 3,000 patients will participate in the experimentation with cannabis for medical use. A great first in France and a first step towards legalization.
A year after the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) gave the green light to the use of cannabis for therapeutic purposes, a first large-scale experiment is about to be carried out, announced to the autumn Christelle Dubos, Secretary of State to the Minister for Solidarity and Health.
Patients suffering from serious pathologies
By the end of the first half of 2020, some 3,000 patients with serious illnesses should therefore join the clinical trial, which will include people suffering from certain forms of epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, neuropathic pain or even side effects of chemotherapy.
Strictly supervised, the use of medical cannabis must present an additional therapeutic contribution for these patients. Already since March, the La Timone hospital in Marseille has been experimenting with therapeutic cannabis with around thirty patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
The establishment followed the recommendations of the ANSM, which indicated that it wanted cannabis for therapeutic purposes to be reserved for “patients in certain clinical situations and in the event of insufficient relief or poor tolerance of therapies, medicinal or not, accessible (and in particular specialties based on cannabis or available cannabinoids)”. “This use can be considered in addition to or in replacement of certain therapies”, further specified the ANSM.
foreign suppliers
France does not currently have a cannabis production sector, the ANSM, which supervises the clinical trial, “will use products that already exist on the market”, explains to 20 minutes Olivier Véran, neurologist and LREM deputy who took the measure.
Already used in seventeen countries of the European Union, therapeutic cannabis has a lower concentration of THC, a cannabinoid with psychoactive properties acting on the psyche. Supposed to relieve pain, it also has antiemetic, analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antiepileptic properties. It also has the ability to relax muscles and stimulate appetite. “The objective of the experiment is not to establish the effectiveness of cannabis on identified pathologies, it is above all to test a system of prescription and delivery”, however explains the Alternative collective for cannabis for therapeutic purposes. (ACT).
A well-framed protocol
No question, however, of being prescribed seals by your doctor, to then pick up at the pharmacy. The therapeutic cannabis delivery protocol is strictly defined. The first prescription will thus have to be written by a medical specialist, a neurologist or a pain doctor, within the hospitals and reference centers chosen to participate in the experiment.
Patients will then have to obtain supplies from a hospital pharmacy, before being able to renew their treatment in their usual pharmacy. The products tested will come “in the form of herbal tea, oil, dried flowers in a spray bottle”, specifies Olivier Véran.
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