Is CBD hash legal in France? The answer in 3 texts

CBD resin is legal in France if three conditions are met at the same time: it comes from a variety of Cannabis sativa L. listed in the Union's common catalogue or the French official catalogue; its delta-9-THC content is not above 0.30%; and that level is established by a laboratory analysis on the batch being sold.

2.1 The arrêté du 30 décembre 2021

This is the reference text (the French order of 30 December 2021). Its article 1, I authorises the cultivation, import, export and industrial and commercial use of varieties of Cannabis sativa L. alone whose delta-9-THC content "is not above 0.30%", listed in the common catalogue of varieties of agricultural plant species or in the French official catalogue. We set out how those two lists work in our guide to hemp varieties in the European catalogue.

Paragraph III bears directly on resin. It provides that the delta-9-THC content "of hemp extracts, as well as of the products incorporating them" is not above 0.30%. A resin, a pollen, an ice-o-lator all come under that sentence: they are extracts within the meaning of the text. Article 3 also repeals the arrêté du 22 août 1990 (French order of 22 August 1990), which had governed the matter until then.

2.2 The Conseil d'État decision of 29 December 2022

On 29 December 2022 the Conseil d'État, France's supreme administrative court (1st and 4th chambers sitting together, no. 444887), annulled paragraph II of article 1 of the arrêté, the one banning the sale to consumers of raw flowers and leaves in every form. The reasoning rests on proportionality: nothing filed in the case established that flowers and leaves below 0.30% THC presented a risk warranting a blanket prohibition, and the level can be checked with quick, inexpensive tests. The court notes that cannabidiol "has no psychotropic effect and does not create dependence".

That annulment concerns flowers and leaves, not extracts, which had never been banned. It nevertheless has a direct effect on the resin trade: it confirms that a product from a compliant variety and within the limit does not fall under the narcotics regime. The version of article 1 in force on Légifrance does indeed carry a note of that annulment.

2.3 The European variety framework

The third pillar is European and operates upstream. The common catalogue of varieties of agricultural plant species, governed by Directive 2002/53/EC, lists the varieties that may be marketed across the Union and is published by the Commission in the Official Journal of the Union. On the farming side, the Commission specifies that hemp areas eligible for common agricultural policy payments require certified seed of common-catalogue varieties, below 0.3% THC, a condition laid down by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/126. It is this machinery that makes the first condition of the French arrêté workable: without a European catalogue, the notion of an "authorised variety" would have no content.

In hemp vocabulary, a resin gathers the trichome heads separated from the plant matter, then most often pressed. The processes differ by the separating agent: ice water for the ice-o-lator and bubble hash, the sieve for dry sift, an electrostatic charge for static. None of these processes uses a solvent. The haschich lexicon entry traces the term and its families, and the 120u entry explains the scale of sieve meshes that turns up on labels.

That technical definition explains the difference from a product bought outside the lawful circuit. A supply-chain resin carries a batch number, a variety of origin, an analysis. A block with no provenance carries none of that, and the abnormal textures in circulation (yellow foam, cutting agents) are described in our article on yellow foamy hash. The word "hash" is common to both worlds; the legal framework is not.

All the compliant references are gathered on the resin, hash, CBG and pollen page, each with its batch and its measured level.

No sensory clue tells you anything about the THC level. Not the colour, not the smell, not the texture, not the price. The only information that can be relied on is the batch certificate of analysis, where the cannabinoids are quantified by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).

Four items are read in order:

• The batch number, which must match the one on the product in hand.
• The delta-9-THC, with its figure and unit, to be compared with the ceiling of 0.30%.
• The laboratory and the date of analysis, an undated certificate being worthless.
• The other blocks: terpenes, heavy metals, pesticides, which are matters of quality and not of the legal limit.

A concrete example: the Frozen Hash resin, batch PG-26-AA10, tests at 15.0% CBD measured by HPLC, for a delta-9-THC strictly below 0.30%. The catalogue's other batches sit in the same CBD band: 15.9% for the 120u ice-o-lator (batch PG-26-A7E3), 16.3% for the bubble hash (batch PG-26-4DA6), 15.1% for the 90u drysift (batch PG-26-DBD7), 18.0% for the piattella (batch PG-26-F1E2). These values concern CBD, never THC, and that is precisely the distinction a buyer should keep in mind. To convert a stated percentage into milligrams per gram, the THC level calculator does the arithmetic, and the detail of how to read a certificate is on the our laboratory page.

Resin being lawful is not a general permission. Several limits remain, independent of the 0.30% figure:

• These are not foodstuffs. The MILDECA, the French inter-ministerial drugs body, states that food products containing CBD currently on the French and European market are marketed unlawfully, for want of novel food authorisation. Resins are therefore not intended to be eaten.
• Sales are for adults only. Over-eighteens alone, with no commercial exception.
• No health claim may accompany these products: a hemp extract is not a health product and cannot be presented as one.
• Driving remains subject to THC screening, whatever level the product used is stated to have.

Those boundaries appear in our frequently asked questions, and the limit itself is covered in the article on the legal THC level.

• Légifrance, arrêté du 30 décembre 2021 (French order of 30 December 2021), article 1, I and III (consulted on 16 September 2026)
• Légifrance, article 1 of the arrêté, version in force with the note of the annulment of II
• Conseil d'État, decision of 29 December 2022, no. 444887
• Conseil d'État, press release on the annulment of the ban on selling flowers and leaves
• European Commission, plant variety catalogues and Directive 2002/53/EC
• European Commission, hemp: certified seed, THC limit and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/126
• MILDECA, CBD: what is allowed and what is not
• Phytogrammes, Frozen Hash listing, batch PG-26-AA10
• Phytogrammes, resin, hash, CBG and pollen category