France Authorizes First Medical Marijuana Treatment

Medical marijuana via Flickr user Mark

Pressure to remove laws criminalizing even the use of marijuana for medicinal uses grew Thursday as France approved its first use, a medication used to help MS sufferers.

The commissioner of the National Football League in the U.S. left the door open for players to use medical marijuana, where it is legal, according to ESPN and CBS.

France 24 said the health ministry authorized the use of Sativex, a cannabinoid mouth spray, to treat people suffering from multiple sclerosis.

The Sativex company website claims it has begun sales in 11 countries and is approved for sale in 13 more.

Last year France had removed the general prohibition of any use of marijuana. It had been banned from the list of legal drugs in 1953.

Le Monde said: “Without fanfare, health authorities announce in a brief statement from the Ministry of Health” that use of cannabis would be allowed for MS treatment.

French researchers have developed a steroid hormone that reduces the high produced by use of THC, the cannabis ingredient sought by recreational users.

“When the brain is stimulated by high doses of THC, it produces pregnenolone — a 3,000 percent increase — that inhibits the effects of THC,” said senior researcher Dr. Pier Vincenzo Piazza of Neurocentre Magendie in Bordeaux, France.

While the legal sale of marijuana in Colorado has gotten much attention, as well as Uruguay legalizing it for its citizens, there has been a groundswell of support for legalization of medical marijuana reaching from Florida to New York. Florida is considering voting on a medicinal marijuana legalization proposal.

Although there is strong opposition to any legalization of marijuana from employees of agencies fighting the drug war, entrepreneurs are rushing to invest in an industry predicted to earn billions of dollars.

Organizations like the ACLU oppose the criminalization because it puts hundreds of thousands of people in jail each year, most of them black.

A Pew Research poll last year found 77 percent of Americans favor legalization of marijuana.

In the years since California became the first state to legalize marijuana for treatment, growers have developed new strains that minimize the highs. These growers focus on producing CBD, which is not psychoactive.

It has been claimed it helps with everything from aging to severe pain to alcoholism, cancer and glaucoma.

France Authorizes First Medical Marijuana Treatment

Article by Robert Weller for Digital Journal

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