The experimentation with medical cannabis begins this Friday and will last two years. The objective is to test this therapeutic option on 3,000 patients for whom no medication is able to relieve pain.
- The people selected to take part in this study are patients in palliative care or who suffer from a serious disease such as multiple sclerosis, cancer or epilepsy.
- Cannabis will be used in the form of oil or inhalation of vaporized dried flowers.
- Six months before the end of the 24 months of experimentation, a report will be submitted to the deputies to propose, or not, to integrate medical cannabis into the French therapeutic arsenal.
It is this Friday, at the CHU of Clermont-Ferrand, in the presence of the Minister of Health Olivier Véran, that the first patient will be prescribed medical cannabis. For two years, 3,000 patients will receive this product in order to relieve the pain that no medication can relieve. The people selected to take part in this study are patients in palliative care or who suffer from a serious disease such as multiple sclerosis, cancer or epilepsy.
Trained healthcare professionals
The prescription and recruitment of patients can only be done in 200 reference centers selected by the ANSM. Registration in the cohort of volunteers and the first prescription will necessarily be done at the hospital before a general practitioner takes over for the following prescriptions and monthly checks. Five more in-depth meetings will punctuate the two years that this life-size clinical trial will last. The doctors concerned will receive training which began at the beginning of March, at the rate of two and a half hours, remotely, with compulsory validation.
Cannabis will be used in the form of oil or inhalation of vaporized dried flowers. It will not be about smoking. The supply will be from pharmacists who, like all the caregivers involved, are volunteers and have been trained. The latter will be supplied by six French pharmaceutical companies which have established partnerships with foreign producers from Canada, Israel, the United Kingdom and Australia. Medical cannabis “is something new, it is necessary to appropriate the conditions of use of this new drug, to ensure that everything happens in the best conditions”, justified the director general of the ANSM, during a press briefing on March 4.
Answer in two years
“The challenge is to see if medical cannabis can be generalized”, announced Christelle Ratignier-Carbonneil, at the beginning of March. Six months before the end of the 24 months of experimentation, a report will be submitted to the deputies to propose, or not, to integrate medical cannabis into the French therapeutic arsenal. Many countries have already integrated therapeutic cannabis such as Canada, Israel, the Netherlands and many American states.
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