France amended its Public Health Code that allowed the use of marijuana-based medicine. Decree 2013-473, published Friday, even permits the use of raw marijuana.

The change was made on request of French Social Affairs and Health Minister Marisol Touraine, which made legal the production, transport, export, possession, offering, acquiring or use of specialty pharmaceuticals with cannabis-derivative substances.

To benefit from the new law are the sublingual spray Sativex and marijuana substitute Cesamet as well as raw marijuana produced under strict conditions for medical purposes only such as the weed produced by Bedrocan in The Netherlands.

However, the Pharmacists' Union said while the new law allows drug makers to unblock the process of launching research into cannabinoids, it may take a while before those medicines reach the market.

With the new law, France joins Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain in allowing some form of therapeutic cannabis.

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