Medical cannabis in France: where things stand in 2026

The answer is short: still in a transitional phase, which keeps being extended. Updated on 20 April 2026, the page on cannabis for medical use of the ANSM, the French medicines agency, still describes this phase. The Ministry of Health has extended it several times to "avoid any interruption of treatment". The phase will end three months after the HAS publishes its opinion on its website.

Two regulatory texts hold up the next step. The first covers cannabis-based medicines themselves and will let the ANSM process authorisation applications. The second lets the HAS assess their value and sets the conditions for reimbursement. In a written question published on 12 February 2026, a senator urged the government to publish both texts; the ministry had not yet answered.

The official timeline was announced in February 2026 and reported by France Inter. It plans a decree sent to the Conseil d'État (the Council of State) before the end of June 2026 and an HAS opinion in the autumn. If that opinion is favourable, the first patients would have access from 2027. The Health Minister said treatment for current patients would continue until 31 December 2026; about 700 patients were still receiving it, according to France Inter. The ANSM also extended until 31 December 2026 the scientific committee monitoring the trial.

Article 43 of the 2020 Social Security Financing Act, dated 24 December 2019, created the trial. The ANSM page on how it was set up put the ceiling at 3,000 patients. The first was enrolled on 26 March 2021. Planned for two years, the trial was extended by one year by the 2023 Financing Act.

The scheme was tightly controlled:

• Hospital doctors who had completed mandatory training did the prescribing.
• Patients collected their treatment from hospital or community pharmacies.
• It came as dried flowers to inhale with a vaporiser, and as oils with different THC/CBD ratios.
• It was meant for patients whom existing treatments had failed, in situations such as refractory neuropathic pain, some severe epilepsies or the side effects of chemotherapy.

About 3,000 patients have had access to it since March 2021, according to the senator behind a written question published in the Senate on 27 March 2025. The ministry answered on 25 June 2025. It stated that the texts of the future framework had been notified to the European Commission on 19 March 2025. The HAS had been asked to rule on whether the treatment should be covered.

The framework set by the 2024 Social Security Financing Act is far from over-the-counter sales in pharmacies. According to the ANSM, cannabis-based medicines will need an authorisation from the agency "limited to five years, renewable". Their use will be "strictly restricted to last-line treatment, on initial hospital prescription", for indications where they are presumed effective.

Three points call for a careful reading:

1. Each product is a medicine and will need its own authorisation, under quality and safety criteria defined in the texts notified to Brussels. Without that authorisation, it cannot be prescribed.
2. The first prescription will come from a hospital: the wording "Initial hospital prescription" means that a hospital doctor will start the treatment.
3. Reimbursement depends on the HAS. Until it has given its opinion, neither the reimbursement rate nor the list of covered indications is known.

Cannabis remains a controlled drug as well. The 1961 Single Convention lists cannabis flowering tops, resin, extracts and tinctures as narcotics, as the French interministerial drug agency MILDECA recalls on its CBD page. The future framework opens a controlled medical exception and legalises nothing.

The same plant falls under three legal frameworks with no overlap between them.

Epidyolex is the only authorised cannabidiol-based medicine. The European Medicines Agency limits it to seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut or Dravet syndrome, together with clobazam from age 2, and to tuberous sclerosis complex. Our article on CBD and epilepsy covers the trials behind that authorisation.

Shop CBD comes under a completely different text. The decree of 30 December 2021 allows products made from hemp varieties listed in the catalogue, with no more than 0.30% Δ⁹-THC. The Conseil d'État struck down on 29 December 2022 the ban on selling raw flowers and leaves. For food, the Ministry of Agriculture states that foods containing CBD are illegal and must be withdrawn from the market, since none has a novel food authorisation. CBD regulation in 2026 sets out the situation product by product, and the legal THC level covers the THC threshold.

Legally, nothing. Medical cannabis comes under the Public Health Code, and CBD under hemp, food and cosmetics law. A change in one leaves the other as it is.

There are three practical consequences:

• Shop CBD is not a medicine, cannot replace a treatment and may not claim any therapeutic effect. What trials have actually measured is summarised in what clinical studies really say.
• It cannot be reimbursed, since only authorised medicines can be, as our article on CBD and reimbursement explains.
• If you take medication, talk to your doctor: CBD acts on liver enzymes that break down many medicines, a mechanism described in CBD and medicines: the grapefruit effect.

For what comes next, the ANSM page remains the reference source. Dates given by shops or forums are often projections that no decision has confirmed.