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France OKs sale of medical cannabis

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The French drug safety agency has approved commercial sales of a medicine derived from cannabis for the first time in France.

Read: More about dagga (cannabis)

France's Health Ministry has said in a statement that sales of Sativex, produced by Britain's GW Pharmaceuticals, will be allowed for the treatment of muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis.

Sativex contains marijuana's two best known components – delta 9-THC and cannabidiol. The company's website says the medicine has already been launched in 11 countries and approved in more than a dozen others.

A number of countries have been easing curbs on the sale of cannabis-based products for medical use in recent years, and the US state of Colorado allowed the nation's first legal recreational marijuana shops to open starting this year.

Read more:

Cannabis not a cure-all

(AP, January 2014)

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