Medical cannabis in France: where things stand in 2026

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

Two regulatory texts hold up the next step. The first governs cannabis-based medicines themselves: it is what will allow the ANSM to process authorisation applications. The second allows the HAS to 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's answer was still pending.

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

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

The scheme was tightly controlled:

• Who prescribed: hospital doctors who had completed mandatory training.
• Where patients collected it: from hospital or community pharmacies.
• In what form: dried flowers for inhalation with a vaporiser, and oils with different THC/CBD ratios.
• For whom: patients for 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 had access to it since March 2021, according to the senator who wrote a written question published in the Senate on 27 March 2025. The ministry's answer, published on 25 June 2025, states that the texts of the future framework were notified to the European Commission on 19 March 2025, and that the HAS had been asked to rule on whether the treatment should be covered.

The framework set by the 2024 Social Security Financing Act does not look like over-the-counter sales in pharmacies. According to the ANSM, cannabis-based medicines will require an authorisation "limited to five years, renewable", issued by the agency. Their use will be "strictly restricted to last-line treatment, on initial hospital prescription", for indications where they are presumed effective.

Three points deserve a careful reading:

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

Cannabis also remains a controlled drug. The 1961 Single Convention lists the flowering tops, resin, extracts and tinctures of cannabis as narcotics, as the French interministerial drug agency MILDECA recalls on its CBD page. The future framework opens a controlled medical exception, not legalisation.

The same plant falls under three legal frameworks that do not overlap.

Epidyolex is the only authorised cannabidiol-based medicine. The European Medicines Agency restricts 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 details the trials behind that authorisation.

Shop CBD follows an entirely different text. The decree of 30 December 2021 allows products 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. On the food side, the Ministry of Agriculture states that foods containing CBD are illegal and must be withdrawn from the market, as none has novel food authorisation. The situation product by product is set out in CBD regulation in 2026, and the THC threshold in the legal THC level.

Nothing, legally. Medical cannabis falls under the Public Health Code; CBD falls under hemp, food and cosmetics law. One does not relax the other.

Three practical consequences follow:

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

To follow what happens next, the reference source remains the ANSM page. Dates given by shops or forums are often projections, not decisions.