With eight months to go before the presidential elections, the government seems more determined than ever to wage an all-out war on cannabis. Even if it means including wellness hemp in a battle that some would say is futile. On the question of CBD, the executive persists in wanting to ban the trade of flowering tops in France, a market estimated at a billion euros, with hundreds of thousands of jobs created in the process. In an article published in Les Echos, the President of the Syndicat Professionnel du Chanvre, Aurélien Delcroix, analyzes the ins and outs of such a decision.
France has just submitted its revised version of the decree governing the cultivation, import and export of hemp to the European authorities. And it’s not a good one. The French government is preparing to implement a regulatory framework that is not only contrary to the law, but also counterproductive in terms of public health and public order. This decree would also penalize national economic development, and first and foremost that of the Republic’s forgotten territories.
A gift to criminal networks
While there is a broad consensus on the safety of the product, and many users testify to an improvement in their quality of life (stress, sleep, muscle recovery, etc.) thanks to the use of non-psychotropic hemp, the government has chosen to ban its sale in the form of dried flowers and leaves, thus turning its back on all scientific reasoning. Worse still, the new order would have a negative impact on public health. Indeed, for many cannabis users, hemp flower is a substitute product in the same way that e-cigarettes are for tobacco: a reduced-risk device. It therefore helps to reduce consumption. And in this respect, the scientific evidence demonstrating CBD’s usefulness in cannabinoid withdrawal is abundant. The marketing of CBD hemp flowers reduces cannabis trafficking and the violence and criminality it engenders. By authorizing it, 1 billion euros will be diverted from criminal networks. The government is attacking the humble hemp trader, an ideal victim, easier to punish than the cannabis dealer. The only argument put forward is the hypothetical protection of public order, arguing that it would be impossible to distinguish a hemp flower with no narcotic properties from a recreational cannabis flower. This French position is once again undermined by the example of other European countries. Our neighbors have put in place appropriate tools to enable law enforcement agencies to easily make the distinction. The conclusion is clear: we don’t want to give our law enforcement agencies the modern resources of their European counterparts.
Loss of economic opportunity
Our leaders have no desire to make our country a sovereign hemp power in the concert of European nations. The hemp market will be left to our European neighbors. Rather than see a national economic sector develop, the government is refusing the growth points expected from this booming market. After all, economic submission is also a policy, even if it’s never the most beneficial for national jobs and shared values with our fellow citizens. We foolishly thought that 1 billion euros in sales and a hundred thousand jobs created for the hemp flower alone could make sense in France, after months of economic contraction. For our leaders, economic recovery is preferable on the other side of the Rhine, the Alps or the Pyrenees. After all, that’s where the new and promising CBD flower market will develop.
The products will be imported into France, creating confusion and difficulties for our law enforcement agencies in the absence of a suitable framework. In addition to not complying with European regulations, this decree risks becoming a source of disorganization for law enforcement agencies.
Our country has chosen to abandon the potential benefits that our farmers and retailers could have generated, leaving them with nothing but red tape and economic crumbs. By cutting ourselves off from this market, we are, once again, condemned to downgrading in the European and world rankings due to dogmatic and ubiquitous decisions.
And yet, France has a long history with this crop, which is part of our terroir and national heritage. While the varieties grown in France have never been considered “narcotic”, hemp has been recognized as a medicinal plant. The “new” CBD hemp market could primarily benefit France’s outlying territories, far removed from the economic dynamics. It would enable rural and suburban France to return to the path of growth.
In this respect, the economic windfall from hemp would provide a solid income for our struggling farmers. It could also attract agri-food industry executives to these areas. The arrival of a population with high purchasing power would also benefit the local retail ecosystem, while revitalizing the tertiary sector and housing supply, which is currently in a state of disrepair. By following the recommendations of the majority parliamentarians on hemp, France would allow itself a new, more cohesive land-use planning dynamic. Our authorities’ hemp decree today takes the exact opposite path.
For all these reasons, the Syndicat Professionnel du Chanvre is continuing its fight and is preparing to take the matter to the relevant administrative and judicial authorities, in order to restore pragmatism to our national, economic and agricultural guidelines on the subject.
Aurélien DELECROIX, President, Syndicat Professionnel du Chanvre
