Georgia Medical Cannabis Bill dies in State Senate

A bill to repair Georgia’s failed medical cannabis program passed the state Senate this week after lawmakers failed to agree on a compromise proposal. The law passed the state House of Representatives but tabled it Monday by a 28-27 vote in the Georgia Senate.

“I’m really, really disappointed,” House Speaker David Ralston said after the bill passed the Senate.

In 2015, the Georgia state legislature passed the Haleigh’s Hope Act, a measure that allowed patients with certain medical conditions, including seizure disorders and end-stage cancer, to use cannabis oil with no more than 5% THC. However, the legislation did not include provisions for the regulated production and sale of cannabis oil, leaving patients with no legal way to obtain their medication.

Four years later, lawmakers finally passed a bill allowing the cultivation of medical marijuana and the production and sale of cannabis oil. That same year, Governor Brian Kemp, Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan and Ralston appointed a seven-member commission to draft regulations and license medical cannabis producers.

In 2021, the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission (GMCC) announced it would award licenses to six companies from a pool of nearly 70 applicants. More than a dozen unsuccessful applicants filed protests against the selection. One applicant, Georgia Atlas, filed a lawsuit, calling the selection process “a lack of transparency, objectivity, and fairness.” The lawsuit halted the licensing process in its tracks, leaving Georgia’s 20,000 registered medical marijuana patients still without access to legal cannabis oil.

“We’ve been trying to get this done here in Georgia for about seven or eight years and it’s still not done,” Ralston said.

Last month, the House and Senate approved separate bills to fix the deficiencies and get Georgia’s medicinal cannabis program up and running. A Legislative Conference committee drafted the compromise proposal, which failed to gain approval in the Senate this week. Under the Compromise Act, a state agency would review all protests and initial applications for six medical cannabis licenses by June. The proposal would also have allowed regulators to grant three additional licenses to medical cannabis producers. The compromise measure passed Monday night in the House of Representatives by a vote of 95 to 73.

“We’ve finally come up with a plan that’s fair to everyone involved,” House Majority Leader Jon Burns said after approving the bill. “This addresses a need, an urgent need by the citizens of our state to use this product that is making a huge difference in the health of the people of this state.”

But in the Senate, minority leader Gloria Butler moved to introduce the legislation. The motion passed, preventing the bill from going to a vote.

The legislature fails, the patients lose

The failure of state legislators to legislate for a working medical cannabis program in Georgia means patients will continue to abstain from their medications. State Representative Ben Watson said the situation was shameful.

“We have been working on this for 10 years. We haven’t given children the oil they deserve,” Watson said. “That’s what the kids of the state of Georgia and all these registrants deserve — to bring them this oil.”

Dale Jackson, the father of a medical cannabis patient and co-applicant who failed to gain approval in the original selection round, was disappointed with lawmakers’ failure to find a solution.

“The state of Georgia had three years and achieved nothing,” Jackson said.

“It is anathema to Georgia families how messed up this commission is and how the leadership has failed Georgia families,” he added.

Cannabis advocates, including Jackson, have also criticized the Medical Cannabis Commission’s lack of transparency in issuing licenses. Information on thousands of pages of successful bids has been redacted by state law and withheld from the public. The evaluation of the winning bids by the politically appointed members of the commission was also kept secret.

“The way this new agency was launched. It was so outrageous. It was awful,” Jackson said.

After the bill was submitted to the Senate, Ralston said the move was a disappointment to the state’s medical cannabis patients.

“I’m at a loss,” Ralston told reporters. “How long do these people have to wait? I am really very disappointed. We worked, we couldn’t get the Senate to get heavily involved in the conference committee. We thought we hired them, they came back with a report from the conference committee and they put it up and he gets beat up. I hope Georgia families know we did our best. The blame is over there as far as I’m concerned.”