Oops! Georgia lawmakers almost accidentally voted on the Delta-8 bill

Lawmakers in Georgia learned a valuable civic lesson earlier this month: Always know what you’re voting on.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has the details of an amusing story from the Peach State General Assembly, where cannabis reform was a hot topic during this year’s legislative session.

It all started with a bipartisan bill aimed at “helping cannabis farmers with a bill that would allow more hemp products in a state where marijuana remains illegal,” drafted by what the newspaper described as an “unlikely Senate duo — a Conservative farmer from South Georgia running for high office,” and a liberal preacher from Atlanta: Republican Senator Tyler Harper and his Democratic counterpart, Senator Kim Jackson.

The bill, according to the Journal’s constitution, “began as a proposal to allow hemp cultivation by Georgians who are currently convicted of a criminal offense,” and would have “authorized the issuance of hemp cultivation licenses to individuals as long as they have been in the past 10 years.” not convicted of a felony involving a state-controlled substance.

But after that bill was approved by a Senate state committee, Harper introduced a replacement bill that included the following wording: “Hemp products are not considered controlled substances because of the presence of hemp or hemp-derived cannabinoids.”

That, as the newspaper put it, would have effectively legalized Delta 8 THC, a compound that gives some users a high similar to standard cannabis and has gained popularity in the United States after Congress legalized industrial hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill .

The bill made it out of committee and into the Georgia State Senate earlier this month before some concerned lawmakers realized what was at stake and returned the legislation to committee.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that “Agriculture Chairman Larry Walker said he voted on the Rules Committee ‘didn’t understand everything that was in the bill.'”

“It’s on me. It slipped through my mind,” Walker said, as quoted by the newspaper.

What underscores the mishap is how much Georgia lawmakers have recently focused on cannabis-related bills — particularly the state’s troubled medicinal cannabis program.

Georgia legalized medicinal cannabis treatment in 2015, but only in the form of THC oil. Worse, as the Journal’s constitution put it last month, “State law has allowed registered patients in Georgia to use medical marijuana oil, but they still have no legal opportunity to purchase it here.” This has been a massive source of frustration for the approximately thousands of patients currently enrolled in the program who have been forced to purchase cannabis products in other states or through the illicit market.

A bill presented in February aims to open up the program significantly, including increasing the number of medical cannabis licenses in the state from six to 22. After the licenses are issued by the end of June, the bill would also start a countdown of sorts and give the new licensed company to start a year.

The first six companies were only selected last July, six years after medical cannabis was legalized in the state. And the state first began accepting applications from would-be cannabis producers in late 2020.

This month, lawmakers in the Georgia State Senate and House of Representatives considered a series of bills that would give the often-delayed program a boost, including legislation aimed at restarting the licensing process.

“The sole purpose of the bill is to bring medicinal cannabis to those on the register,” Senator Dean Burke said of the bills. “The process, most people would say, was flawed.”