Kanavape ruling (C-663/18): what the CJEU decided on CBD

Two former managers of a French company sold Kanavape, an e-cigarette using CBD oil. The CBD was produced in the Czech Republic from legally grown hemp plants used whole, flowers and leaves included. It was then imported into France and put into cartridges.

French law at the time only allowed hemp fibre and seeds to be used. The rule came from the order of 22 August 1990, as read by a Ministry of Justice circular of 23 July 2018. Any CBD taken from the flowers was therefore outside the rules, even with no narcotic effect.

The Court's judgment sets out the facts. The ANSM laboratory, France's medicines agency, had tested cartridges sold in France: the CBD content varied widely, but THC was always below the permitted limit. In July 2016, the ANSM said it did not regard the product as a medicine.

Even so, on 8 January 2018 the Marseille criminal court sentenced the two managers to 18 and 15 months' suspended imprisonment and a fine of €10,000 each. They appealed. On 23 October 2018, the Aix-en-Provence court of appeal referred a question to the CJEU: does EU law allow France to ban this CBD?

The Court answered in three steps. Its press release No 141/20 summarises them.

On the second point, the Court relied on the state of science in 2020. Unlike THC, the CBD at issue "does not appear to have any psychotropic effect or any harmful effect on human health". The product came from plants whose THC did not exceed 0.2%, the EU limit for cultivated hemp at the time.

On the third point, the Court left the final word to the French judge, but gave two pointers. First, the French ban did not cover synthetic CBD, which has the same properties: a rule that lets the substitute through does a poor job of protecting health. Second, France does not have to prove that CBD is as dangerous as a narcotic. The alleged risk must still be "sufficiently established", not based on "purely hypothetical considerations".

The judgment is often quoted more broadly than what it actually decides. Three limits are worth knowing.

It does not make every CBD product legal. THC remains a controlled drug, and the product the Court examined complied with the limit then in force. CBD above the legal THC limit is not covered, and neither is a product containing semi-synthetic molecules such as HHC or H4CBD, since classified as narcotics in France.

It does not say that CBD is harmless. The Court refers to what was known in 2020 and accepts that a state may restrict sales on the basis of a sufficiently established health risk. Since then, EFSA set on 9 February 2026 a provisional safe level of about 2 mg of CBD per day for a 70 kg adult, and a classification of CBD as toxic for reproduction is under review at EU level.

It does not settle the case of food. The product was an e-cigarette. CBD meant to be swallowed falls under the EU novel food regulation, which requires prior authorisation. None has been granted, and on 20 May 2026 the French Ministry of Agriculture reminded operators that foods containing CBD must be withdrawn from the market.

French courts applied the ruling within a year. On 23 June 2021, the Court of Cassation quashed a conviction for drug offences. Before convicting, the judge must check whether the seized CBD was lawfully produced in another member state.

On 17 November 2021, the Aix-en-Provence court of appeal acquitted one of the two former managers on all charges. This comes from the press release of the law firm that defended him.

The government replaced the 1990 order with the order of 30 December 2021. The new text allows flowers and leaves to be used to produce extracts and sets the limit at 0.30% Δ⁹-THC. It did, however, ban the sale of raw flowers and leaves to consumers. The Conseil d'État, France's highest administrative court, suspended that ban on 24 January 2022 and annulled it on 29 December 2022, following the Court's reasoning on proportionality. Our article on the order banning CBD flowers covers that sequence.

The foundation laid in 2020 still holds. CBD from authorised hemp is not a narcotic, and a general ban must rest on a proven risk. That is why the question "is CBD a drug?" now has a clear legal answer.

The framework has tightened on other fronts, though. The THC limit is 0.30% in the plant and in finished products, as our page on the legal THC level explains. Semi-synthetic cannabinoids are banned. CBD foods left the shelves in 2026. Our overview of CBD regulation in 2026 lists what is still on sale.