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France vows to ban new cannabis 'e-joint'

The Local/AFP
The Local/AFP - [email protected]
France vows to ban new cannabis 'e-joint'
Just as it was launched, France says it will ban the 'e-joint'. Photo: AFP

France will seek to outlaw a new electronic cigarette containing cannabis, a minister announced on Tuesday, on the very day the product was launched. The so-called e-joint claims it provides all of the relaxation but none of the mind-altering effects of marijuana.

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French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said the product would "incite the consumption of cannabis" and that she intended approaching the courts to ban it.

"I am opposed to such a product being commercialised in France," she said on RTL radio.

The product,that has been dubbed an e-joint, was launched by a French-Czech company called Kanavape which says it hopes to offer "millions of people a legal and flavourful way to consume cannabis."

Smoking e-cigarettes, or "vaping", is ultra-fashionable in France, and while people have long since figured out how to doctor them to smoke marijuana -- as evidenced by hundreds of YouTube how-to's on the subject -- Kanavape claims their product is 100 percent legal.

Three young Frenchmen launched their electronic cigarette containing cannabis extracts on Tuesday which they say will give you the relaxing and pain-killing effect of the drug but without the high - and they claim it will be entirely legal.

KanaVape brings you many of the benefits of cannabinoids without the psychotic effect of THC,” the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, according to the website of the product due to go on sale this month.

“Vape pens” - the fashionable term for electronic cigarettes - which allow consumers to inhale cannabis vapour rather than combusted smoke, are increasingly popular in the United States, where many states have recently legalised the consumption of cannabis for medical or recreational purposes.

But they are rare in Europe, where the Netherlands is the only country to have legalised marijuana.

KanaVape hopes to tap into the potentially huge market.

“By using only hemp with 5% CBD (Cannabidiol) and no THC, KanaVape provides you a unique cannabinoids experience. Cannabidiol is a non-psychotic cannabinoid, it will not make you "high" but will help you relax,” the firm claims.   

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