CBD and driving in France: 3 years and €9,000 since 2025

Law no. 2025-622 of 9 July 2025 appeared in the Official Journal the following day. It created the offence of road homicide, toughened driving offences and applies to acts committed from 11 July 2025. For drug driving, it raises the maximum penalties set by article L235-1 of the Highway Code.

Under the new article 221-18 of the Penal Code, a fatal crash caused by a driver whose test shows narcotic use is now called road homicide. It carries 7 years in prison and a €100,000 fine, rising to 10 years and €150,000 when several aggravating circumstances combine.

For driving after using narcotics, the official « Drogue au volant » page on service-public.fr lists further consequences: the loss of 6 licence points, a licence suspension of up to 5 years with no exemption for work, and an awareness course at your own expense. Refusing the roadside test stops nothing: a saliva or blood sample is then taken. Refusing those checks is a separate offence, punished by the same 3 years and €9,000 and the loss of 6 points (article L235-3), with a licence suspension of up to 3 years.

A year later, the law of 18 August 2026 added a separate offence in article L237-1: driving after having "manifestly consumed" psychoactive substances listed by decree. Aimed at deliberate, diverted or excessive use, it leaves the THC rule untouched, and that rule is still article L235-1.

Hemp products may contain up to 0.30% Δ⁹-THC. This limit applies to sale and says nothing about driving, as our article on the legal THC level explains. A flower at 0.2% THC holds 2 mg of THC per gram, and regular smoking or vaping can leave enough THC to trigger a test.

MILDECA, which coordinates French drug policy, confirms this on its page about CBD: traces of THC in CBD products "can pass into the blood or saliva of their consumers".

Judges draw no distinction either. The Court of Cassation held, in a ruling of 21 June 2023 (appeal no. 22-85.530), that the permission to sell hemp derivatives under 0.30% THC has "no bearing" on the offence. Once use is established, the offence is made out "whatever the dose absorbed", so a driver cannot rely on having bought a legal product.

French law punishes the presence of THC, whatever the driver's state. This is a choice: for THC, science has no equivalent of the 0.5 g of alcohol per litre of blood used for drink-driving.

An Australian team combined 28 publications covering 822 measures of driving-related performance. Their meta-analysis published in 2022 in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews describes THC concentrations in blood and saliva as "relatively poor indicators" of impairment. Occasional users showed a weak link, and regular users no significant relationship at all.

A 2020 on-road trial in JAMA gives a closer view of the gap. In Maastricht, 26 occasional users vaporised cannabis that was THC-rich, CBD-rich or balanced, or a placebo, and then drove 100 km. THC-rich cannabis made the car weave more in its lane 40 to 100 minutes after use, and the difference was no longer significant 4 to 5 hours later. CBD-rich cannabis gave the same result as placebo. According to the authors, the 13.75 mg dose tested may not reflect typical use.

In saliva, THC therefore remains detectable well after the measured effect has worn off. The table of detection times published by Drogues Info Service, France's public drug information service, gives these windows: 6 to 8 hours after occasional use, up to 24 hours with regular use and up to 8 days with heavy daily use. A driver who feels nothing any more can still test positive, which is enough for the offence.

According to service-public.fr, testing has three stages:

1. Roadside saliva test. It looks for THC, never CBD.
2. Confirmation sample. If the test is positive, a second saliva sample goes to a laboratory. That result is the one that counts.
3. Blood sample, if you ask for one. You must ask for it when the second saliva sample is taken, to reserve a counter-analysis. The counter-analysis itself is then requested within 5 days of being notified of the result.

Our guide CBD and drug testing covers kit thresholds, the molecules tested for and other types of test. Testing at work follows other rules, explained in saliva testing by employers.

No official source gives a safe waiting time after using a CBD product. Products differ in how much THC they contain, and the speed at which it clears depends on how often you use them. In practice, this leads to three rules.

• Do not drive after using a full-spectrum product: full-spectrum flowers, resins and oils contain small but real amounts of THC.
• If you drive often, choose a product with no detectable THC. An isolate or a THC-free oil removes the risk, provided the batch analysis reports THC as "not detected" and gives its limit of detection.
• Base your choice on the analysis, which the label cannot replace. Our guide to reading a certificate of analysis shows where to find the Δ⁹-THC line.

For clearance times by type of sample, see how long CBD stays in the body.