A display of medical cannabis products at Trulieve’s Marietta store. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
Ten years after Georgia legalized cannabis possession for medical use, lawmakers in both chambers of the state Legislature seem poised to expand access a bit more.
Georgia lawmakers had long resisted decriminalizing possession of the drug because of its stigmatizing medical marijuana nickname, even as a parade of parents annually brought their children to the state Capitol as evidence of the need for the medicine that offered a promise of relief to little ones suffering from epileptic seizures and other maladies.
Attempts to widen the path to accessing medical cannabis have stalled in recent years, but as the pivotal Crossover Day deadline looms March 6, at least one bill has made it halfway through the Legislature.
Tetrahydrocannabinol, generally abbreviated to “THC,” is the psychoactive compound in marijuana that is currently classified as a Schedule I drug at the federal level and banned in Georgia. However, THC’s non-psychoactive counterpart cannabidiol, also known as CBD, has been shown to be effective in treating health conditions including epilepsy, Crohn’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Whether from a dispensary or a pharmacy, patients must be approved by a doctor to access CBD products. House Bill 227, introduced by Musella Republican Rep. Robert Dickey, seeks to revamp Georgia’s medical cannabis laws by allowing patients to more easily access and navigate the program, with Dickey dubbing the bill the “Putting Georgia’s Patients First Act.”
The bill focuses on three main changes, including replacing the term “low-THC oil” with “medical cannabis,” in Georgia code and improving access to information about the program after a 2024 report from the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission found that many doctors and patients were unaware that Georgia’s medical cannabis program existed. The bill also removes requirements that certain medical diagnoses like cancer or Parkinson’s disease be “severe or end stage,” and adds Lupus to the list of qualifying health conditions.
“Many of you were here when Allen Peake, my neighbor in Macon, did a lot of work on
medical cannabis,” Dickey said as he presented HB 227 on the House floor, citing efforts by a former GOP state lawmaker who campaigned at the Capitol for years to legalize the medicine. “Since that bill, this is the first bill, in my opinion, that’s considered to put Georgia’s patients first. We have focused our attention on other parts of this medical cannabis program, but have not really focused on the patients.”
Dickey’s bill passed in a 164-1 House vote Thursday. A second bill, Senate Bill 220, would go even further by allowing all parts and derivatives of the cannabis plant from being used for medicinal purposes, as well as removing a ban on vaping cannabis oil and other products. It passed through the Senate Health and Human Services Committee last week and is now awaiting a vote in the Senate.
Nationwide, nearly every state has enabled residents to use some form of medical or recreational marijuana, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But of the 23 states that have legalized only medical cannabis, Georgia is on the more restrictive end as one of nine states making only CBD and low-THC products legal.
To some, Georgia’s current medical cannabis landscape is a far cry from the one that existed ten years ago, when Peake first won enough support from fellow state lawmakers to legalize medical cannabis. Known as the Haleigh’s Hope Act, the bill created the Georgia Commission on Medical Cannabis, legalized possession of low-THC oil for the first time in Georgia, and created a new research program dedicated to studying the drug’s impact. However, the bill did not allow patients or their caregivers to purchase the medicine in Georgia, resulting in patients and their families having to travel out of state in order to access the medicine.
Four years later, lawmakers passed House Bill 324, which created a process for six companies to produce and sell the oil in-state, but it took years of continued legislative action and lawsuits to successfully roll out the program.
Peake, who introduced Georgia’s inaugural medical cannabis legislation, said he still feels the impact of introducing Haleigh’s Hope Act in his everyday life.
“About a week ago at church, I had an older lady come up to me and say, ‘You have no idea the impact that your legislation has had on the quality of my life,’” Peake said. “So many times I’ve heard that story from others who have benefited from either being able to come off of pharmaceutical drugs or had a reduction in seizures or help with their pain from one of the medical diagnoses they have, and that’s what’s been the overwhelming benefit.”
And though he says he still does not support legalizing marijuana for recreational use, he agrees that the program should be expanded to include a wider array of patients.
“Why shouldn’t we allow someone to be able to benefit not just because they’re dying, but because it would improve their quality of life?” he said. “That’s why I’m so grateful to Representative Dickey for leading the charge to make these improvements in legislation.”
However, while the bill has broad support from advocates and lawmakers alike, some proponents of expanding medical cannabis in Georgia argue that the bill does not go far enough to help patients access medical cannabis in the forms that they need. Current medical cannabis laws include products like oils, tinctures, transdermal patches, lotions, and capsules, but not edible products, vaporization, or smokable flower, which some advocates see as a missed business opportunity for cannabis companies in Georgia.
“Our patients, they complain, like, ‘look, there’s no need for us to be a part of this medical cannabis program if they don’t have flower,’” said Yolanda Bennett, the co-founder and director of operations, social justice, and advocacy for the Georgia Medical Cannabis Society. “A lot of people still choose to go to the legacy market, the black market, or to even just order their hemp products online.”
Right now, there are over 27,500 patients registered for Georgia’s low-THC oil program, with intractable pain and post-traumatic stress patients making up more than 75% of those on the list, according to recent data from the state Department of Public Health. However, those numbers are dwarfed by neighboring states like Mississippi and Louisiana, where enrollment numbers are closer to 50,000.
Bennett said she hopes Georgia will follow the example of states like Colorado and Virginia, which are far friendlier to consumers of medical cannabis. However, it may take a broader shift of current mindsets around the long banned substance before such changes can be implemented.
“We need to expand Georgia’s medical cannabis program,” Bennett said. “It’s not that we’re trying to [increase] adult use, but people have to realize that cannabis is medicine.”
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