While world-renowned hashmaker Frenchy Cannoli may have been a true cannabis evangelist, educating the masses on how to make high quality hash, unfortunately, the country he hailed from, France, has very different views of cannabis. Seeing how restrictive French laws on cannabis have been until very recently, it is no wonder that Frenchy left his home for greener pastures and greener buds in other countries. Read on to learn the basics of cannabis in France before your next visit to Paris.

Drug Trafficking

Before getting into French cannabis laws, a word on drug trafficking. In France, like most countries, a person bringing drugs into the country on a plane can be charged with drug trafficking. A law that went into effect in 2020 was a small step towards decriminalizing cannabis possession, so long as it is less than 50 grams (roughly two ounces), there is a chance to pay a fine and avoid jail time, but it is still a criminal offense.

Nascent Medical Cannabis Industry

France began their experiments with medical cannabis in 2021, with a two-year pilot study of 3,000 patients. Given the success of their ongoing pilot study, it is no surprise that on March 1st, 2022, the French government issued a decree legalizing medical cannabis. Specifically, the decree amended the French Public Health Code allowing for the legal cultivation, production/manufacture, transportation (including import/exporting), and possession of cannabis for medical use.

That decree will lead to the birth of a French medical cannabis industry, but only once it is implemented and the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) establishes the supply chain. The ANSM must also create the 11 member committee who will serve an advisory role on a number of aspects relating to medical cannabis, such as track and trace, approved methods of ingestion, and identification of cultivars. 

No Medical Cannabis Reciprocity

As the medical cannabis industry in France is still in its infancy, there are no regulations that currently allow for what is known as medical cannabis reciprocity, in other words, one state or country honoring another state or country’s medical cannabis recommendation. That means that even if you have a medical cannabis recommendation that is valid another country (Canada, Germany, Israel, United States, etc.) it will not help you legally purchase or use cannabis in France. Time will tell if France will allow for some sort of reciprocity for medical cannabis patients.

Limited Progress Towards Full Legalization

France is widely regarded as having some of the most restrictive cannabis laws in Europe and while they have very recently come to embrace medical cannabis, it is moving slowly and the government is generally opposed to legalization. Like the United States, despite very restrictive cannabis laws, France’s Interior Ministry notes that it “has Europe’s second-highest consumption levels with around 900,000 daily cannabis users.” As a fellow member of the European Union, France is watching their neighbor Germany, and French Health Minister François Braun says they “will closely monitor the evolution of the German legislative framework, especially with regard to its potential impact on cross-border regions.” Frustratingly, while the United States and much of the world is trending in a positive direction on cannabis, with legalization happening fairly rapidly, things have stalled in France at the early onset of medical legalization. 

A June 2021 poll by the Institut français d’opinion publique showed that 51% of French people wanted to see cannabis decriminalized, the highest percentage since the 1970s when it was first made illegal. Other survey data indicates that past year use rates and lifetime use rates in France were comparable to those of the U.S., with nearly half of the country reporting some cannabis use in their lifetime and over 10% reporting use in the past year.

CBD Flower Was Recently Legalized

With no adult use legalization in France, and no medical cannabis reciprocity, there is no legal way to consume THC-rich cannabis in France. Thankfully, the French Council of State (the French equivalent to the Supreme Court) overturned their ban on CBD-rich flower at the end of last year, allowing for the creation of a French CBD industry. That means Parisian tourists can soon be enjoying CBD-rich cannabis products, including flower. Time will tell if CBD-infused french wine and cheese will be on the menu any time soon. 

Disproportionate Targeting of Muslims

Like in the U.S., the enforcement of drug laws in France has disproportionately targeted some minority groups, specifically, Muslims. Professor David Guba ran the numbers, and despite only 9% of France’s population being Muslim, the data suggests “that up to 1 in 6 prisoners in France today may be an Arab Muslim man who used, possessed or sold cannabis.”

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In the U.S., it’s an all-too-familiar story that Black and Mexican folks have been disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs, but in France, they have a similar issue with the impact cannabis laws have on Muslims. 

France, like many other countries around the world, are finally flirting with the idea of ending prohibition. They have CBD cafes now, which are gaining popularity, and the European Union is slowly starting to change the tune about how they treat cannabis. But like in many other spots, it is the marginalized folks who have been impacted the most. 

New research shows that the past 50 years have been rough for Muslims when it comes to the War on Drugs. Close to one-fifth of prisoners in the French prison system currently were arrested for drug offenses, and most of them are men. It is hard to gain specific demographics in France because their “absolute equality” law makes it illegal to collect data based on race, ethnicity, or religion. 

However, sociologist Farhad Khosrokhavar studies the French prison system and found that half the people incarcerated today in France are either of Muslim or Arab descent. This means that half of the 69,000 people who are incarcerated are Muslim or Arab, although those demographics only make up 9% of the 67 million people in France. 

Another study from 2018 commissioned by the French National Assembly shows that when looking at the 117,420 of the arrests in 2010, 86% of them were over cannabis charges, and the amount of people arrested for cannabis use between 2000 and 2015 rose from 14,501 to 139,683. When all these studies are compared, it paints a clear picture of Muslim and Arab folks being arrested for cannabis at a disproportionate rate.

Much like how America demonized cannabis by equating it to a poison pedaled by Mexican drug cartels and Black criminals—a largely false and inflated narrative—French historians have done something similar with Muslims. French fiction talked of Muslim “hashish-eating assassins”  who were deranged, violent, and dangerous. French researchers also grew tired of working with cannabis when it was clear it was not a cure for cholera. The combined lack of medical interest and racist propaganda led to a distrust of cannabis throughout the culture. In 1953, medical hashish became illegal. 

They even have their own version of reefer madness: “folie haschischique.” French colonialists in Algeria claimed that hashish caused insanity and violent criminal behavior, often putting sober or self-medicating mentally ill folks into psychiatric care and claiming cannabis was the cause. 

In 1968, again mirroring events in the U.S., there were racial tensions against the North Africans who emigrated to France, claiming they were prone to violence and criminality due to the use of cannabis in their culture. This led to even harsher criminalization of the plant. The drug problem in France was referred to as a “foreign plague” and blamed on Arab and Muslim drug traffickers, people of color, and immigrants. There was talk of a cult of Muslim murderers inspired by cannabis and known as the “Hachichins.”

Today, of course, France is making a stand against such racist phrasing and thought, but it is still inherently a part of their culture when it comes to the backlash against cannabis, and it clearly shows in the numbers when prison data is pulled. Like many other places in the world, France has a lot of work to do when it comes to separating out what truly needs to be regulated about cannabis and what just comes from a history of racist propaganda. 

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