A French minister provoked the ire of his government this week after voicing support for moderate decriminalization of marijuana use among adults.

"The prohibition of cannabis in France deserves to be discussed," Jean-Marie Le Guen, France's secretary of state for relations with the parliament, told the news outlet BFMTV on Monday. "Prohibition does not lead to a reduction in consumption. Our country is one of those whose youth consumes the most."

A French junior minister has sparked controversy by calling for renewed debate over the decriminalisation of cannabis. 

"Prohibition is not effective", Jean-Marie Le Guen told France's BFMTV. 

Other lawmakers - including fellow Socialists - dismissed the call, and a government spokesman said there were no plans for decriminalisation.

A recent WHO report found more French 15-year-olds smoked cannabis than in 41 other developed nations.

(AFP) – France and Canada have the highest percentage of 15-year-old pot smokers among 42 well-off nations surveyed by the World Health Organization, the UN agency said in a report Tuesday.

When it comes to policing marijuana, France is far from the most laid-back country in Europe, so the findings come as something of a surprise.

Amsterdam flaunts its cannabis cafes and Barcelona its private reefer clubs, but neither the Netherlands nor Spain were among the top eight nations in which teens admitted they had used cannabis in the last 30 days, according to the study, based on data from 2014.

Fifteen percent of 15-year-olds in France — slightly more boys than girls — said they had indulged, with Canada’s young stoners close behind.

Marijuana legalization has been a political issue in the United States for some time, and while it remains illegal in most states, others have softened their stance in recent years. Colorado and Washington both passed initiatives by popular vote to decriminalize and legalize cannabis in 2012. In 2014, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C., followed suit. Many states including Massachusetts, California, Missouri, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada and Ohio have flirted with legalization for a few election cycles, with buzz growing.

The United States isn't the only country where people use marijuana legally or illicitly. In fact, it isn’t even the country with the highest reported marijuana use.

For a week, seizures and arrests follow one another to try to stem the traffic. But France remains one of the largest consumers of cannabis in Europe. Regular smokers are becoming more numerous, 1.4 million in 2014, a market worth over a billion euros and very difficult to control.

The global tide concerning marijuana legalization is slowly turning. Amsterdam, with its famous coffeeshops where smoking cannabis is OK, was once the international city most associated with legally smoking marijuana. But more countries are passing legislation either decriminalizing or legalizing marijuana in some form. In fact, almost half the states in the United States have legalized marijuana somehow — with more likely to follow suit. 

Big Pharma’s attempts to synthesise cannabis into an artificial pill form are not only failing, but killing people in the process. 

Medical research shows that our bodies are able to synthesise endocannabinoids naturally. Endocannabinoids are the chemical compounds that activate the same receptors as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active component of marijuana. 

Big Pharma have attempted to patent this natural herb via a chemical alternative pill in order to cash in on the market. 

News emerged that a drug trial case which was done in France led into several serious incidents last Friday. As per Independent's report, six men were rushed to the hospital after having negative effects from the drug that they were given during the drug trial which took place in north-western France.

A man died in a French hospital on Sunday after taking part in a drug trial for a painkiller based on a compound similar to cannabis.

The Rennes University Hospital announced the death in a statement but did not identify the patient, who had already been in a state of brain death.

He was among six male volunteers between 28 and 49 hospitalised last week after volunteering to take the experimental drug.

French health authorities said three of the hospitalised volunteers face possible brain damage and an investigation is under way into what French health minister Marisol Touraine called "an accident of exceptional gravity".

On Friday several French agencies opened an investigation into a clinical drug trial that has hospitalized six men in the last week, leaving one permanently brain dead and three in critical condition, likely with permanent brain damage.