NORML: what it stands for and what NORML France does

The letters stand for National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. In the organisation's own account, the lawyer R. Keith Stroup and a few friends met in a Georgetown row house in Washington in early November 1970. They saw laws punishing adult cannabis use as counter-productive. The organisation obtained non-profit status on 2 March 1971.

Today it describes its mission as moving public opinion far enough to legalise responsible adult use, and speaking for consumers. NORML lobbies lawmakers directly. In the United States it works through a network of local chapters, and groups abroad, France among them, have adopted its name.

The year has a French counterpart. The law of 31 December 1970, passed in the same year, laid the basis for punishing drug use, and its provisions are now part of the Public Health Code. How it has evolved is traced in our article on French cannabis law.

According to the statutes of NORML France, it is a non-profit association under the French law of 1901. Three groups merged to form it: CIRC Nord-Est, founded in 1997, Chanvre & Violettes, founded in 2011, and an earlier NORML France, founded in 2013. It went through two interim names, Chanvre & Libertés and then CL-NORML France, before its registration with the Haute-Garonne prefecture on 6 January 2014. Members adopted the current statutes by online vote on 1 October 2023.

Its statutes give it four missions:

• promoting scientific research on cannabis;
• informing the public;
• helping users obtain care and exercise their rights;
• uniting civil society behind a reform grounded in scientific evidence and human rights.

The association says it is linked to NORML in the United States while remaining autonomous in its action, leadership and funding. It plans to fund itself through membership fees, donations, income from activities, sponsorship and possible public grants. It sells neither cannabis nor CBD; it takes part in public debate and has no commercial activity.

The motto on the NORML France website states its position: "Regulate cannabis to reduce risks better". The association publishes analyses, takes positions during parliamentary debates and supports access to medical cannabis, a subject followed in our article on medical cannabis in France.

Several public bodies have published opinions along similar lines, and none of them changed the law.

NORML France sent a paper with 22 recommendations to the parliamentary fact-finding mission on cannabis in April 2021. Presented on 5 May 2021, the mission's interim report followed a public consultation that drew more than 250,000 contributions. It concluded that repressive policy had failed and proposed "regulated legalisation". The Economic, Social and Environmental Council adopted an opinion for controlled legalisation on 24 January 2023, by 87 votes to 25 with 16 abstentions.

Legislation moved in the opposite direction. Since 20 August 2026, article L3421-1 of the Public Health Code, as amended by law no. 2026-798 of 18 August 2026, sets the fixed fine for drug use at €500. It falls to €400 if paid quickly and rises to €1,000 if increased. The offence is still punishable by one year in prison and a €3,750 fine. NORML France opposed the change. Its review of the debates, published on 13 July 2026, echoes the Collectif pour une nouvelle politique des drogues. That collective calls the fixed fine "a demagogic measure" that turns the ability to pay into a criterion of punishment.

NORML campaigns about THC-rich cannabis, a classified narcotic. CBD has its own settled framework. The order of 30 December 2021 authorises hemp varieties with no more than 0.30% Δ⁹-THC and applies the same cap to extracts. The Conseil d'État ruling of 29 December 2022 struck down the ban on selling raw flowers and leaves. That threshold is explained in our article on the legal THC level.

The two subjects overlap in three places that matter if you buy CBD:

• A product that falls outside the order's conditions becomes a narcotic again. MILDECA, which coordinates French drug policy, is explicit: above 0.30% THC, or with a classified molecule such as HHC, drug enforcement applies.
• At the wheel, a trace is enough. The same page notes that the mere presence of THC in a driver's body establishes the offence, including after a CBD product, and our article on CBD and driving sets out the penalties.
• Campaign pages go out of date. A NORML France page on CBD sales, published in July 2021 and still online, cites a 0.2% THC threshold that predates the December 2021 order. For the law in force, rely on the official texts.

You do not need to follow the legalisation debate to buy a compliant CBD product. Understanding the boundary does help: our article on whether CBD is a drug explains it, and our overview of legal models around the world compares it with other countries' choices.