The first State to legalize the therapeutic use of cannabis in 1996, California, responded 20 years later by legalizing, this time, its recreational use.
It is a lucrative market, estimated at around 7 billion dollars (for the State of California alone). Today, it allows residents and tourists alike to freely buy their weed (upon presentation of an identity document) and even to have it delivered to your home.
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Legal situation
Faced with the enthusiasm aroused by the liberalization of the market, Sophie Cilpa, an international lawyer, a specialist in Franco-American legal issues, and Pierre Hourcade, a lawyer who works through Paris, New York and California, both partners in the firm Action Avocat, take stock of the risks incurred by the French who would like to travel joints, seeds or candies infused with cannabis.
Bringing cannabis back to Europe from the US
The message is clear: traveling from the United States, and in particular from California to Europe with cannabis, whatever its form – joint, candy, oil – means, more or less, exporting narcotics, explain the lawyers, insofar as where the transported product is actually constituted in a form or composition prohibited by the legislation in force in France. In this case, the person holding the said products would fall under the provisions of articles 222-34 and follow the Penal Code.
A prohibition must nevertheless be qualified concerning the composition of the transported product. Indeed, cannabis contains several chemical substances, cannabinoids, including THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) – a molecule renowned for its psychotropic effects considered today as a drug prohibited for sale – and CBD (cannabidiol), which has no harmful impact on health and therefore authorized for consumption and transport as long as it does not exceed a particular concentration of THC.
“Contrary to popular belief”, add the lawyers, “public authorities in Europe have not set the percentage of CBD authorized in flowers, oils, liquids, and other products made from cannabis plants, making its consumption and transport legal. Only the THC level is subject to stringent regulations, and only varieties of industrial hemp that must have a THC content of less than 0.2% can be authorized”.
Exceptions
On October 25, 2019, the National Assembly gave the green light to an experiment in the use of medical cannabis as part of the examination of the Social Security draft budget for 2020. The social security financing law for 2020, promulgated on December 24, 2019, thus provided for an experiment in the use of therapeutic cannabis for two years, implemented by the ANSM (National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products).
“From the above, it should be understood that only travelers with a medical prescription will be authorized to transport products containing cannabis, delivered in pharmacies, in a form and quantity following their prescription”, continue the lawyers.
The risks
Suppose the penalties may vary depending on the case. In that case, European legislation specifies that the simple consumer can be assimilated into a trafficker and therefore find himself liable to a penalty of up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of €750.000.
Indeed, specify the lawyers, “to consume cannabis would imply to possess it, and therefore to buy it or to produce it, which leaves the judge completely free to incriminate the so-called user based on the Code of Public Health (use) of the Penal Code (possession, trafficking, production)”.
In practice, the judge’s decision depends on the quantities seized, the background of the accused, and the judge’s preconceptions. Thus, simple users are rarely penalized with heavy penalties unless they possess a quantity of cannabis that far exceeds an “average” daily consumption.
Traveling from LA to SF with cannabis is it legal?
On November 8, 2016, the State of California, by referendum accepted by 56%, approved the legalization of cannabis for recreational use (medicinal cannabis being legalized there since 1996). Following this referendum, a law in 2018 authorized the production, consumption, and marketing of cannabis.
“Acts which therefore allow today to travel with cannabis, CBD or THC, completely legal in California, the quantities being limited to 28.5 grams per person in the event of transport of flowers”.
What about other States?
While the cultivation, use, and marketing of cannabis are prohibited by American federal law (ed., penalties of up to 5 years in prison and a fine of 240,000 euros), 31 out of 50 States have legalized at least a form of cannabis (medicinal or recreational) and 19 States now authorize recreational use and therefore the consumption of cannabis, in all its forms.
Cannabis legislation may vary from State to State, so travelers should carefully check the relevant regulations in the host State before transporting any substance containing cannabis. It is thus possible to travel with a quantity limited to 28.5 grams per person in the State of California against 56.6 grams in the State of New Mexico.
CBD is not marijuana!
CBD cannabis doesn’t have the same restrictions as marijuana and you can legally use and legally consume CBD all around the country.
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