France's highest administrative judicial body has annulled a Government decree that banned the sale of hemp flower and leaf enriched with CBD, the non-psychotropic molecule found in cannabis, Belga News Agency reports.
On Thursday, the French Council of State (Conseil d'Etat) decreed that the Government's ban was "disproportionate", and argued that the sale of CBD in the form of leaves and buds does not "create a sufficient risk to public health" to justify prohibition.
"As scientific data stand, the harmfulness of other molecules present in cannabis flowers and leaves, in particular CBD, has not been established," the Council ruled. On the contrary, it noted that scientific findings actually show that "CBD has relaxing properties and anticonvulsant effects, but does not have a psychotropic effect and does not cause addiction, unlike THC."
THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) is a psychotropic molecule found in cannabis which, unlike CBD (cannabidiol), typically causes a "high" after ingestion.
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On 30 December 2021, the French Government banned the sale of CBD-enriched products containing low (i.e. less than 0.3%) amounts of THC. (Commercial sale of products containing high levels of THC was and remains illegal in France.) The decision was temporarily but not definitively overturned by the Council of State on 24 January of this year.
In its latest ruling, the Council also dismissed the French Government's argument that if CBD were not banned it would be difficult for law enforcement officials to distinguish between CBD-enriched cannabis plants containing low and high levels of THC. Rather, the Council claimed that this distinction could easily be made "by means of quick and inexpensive tests".
The Council's decision was celebrated across the cannabis sector in France, where there are believed to be roughly 2,000 CBD shops.
