COBB COUNTY, Ga. — In a unanimous virtual vote, the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission approved dispensary licenses to two companies so they may begin distributing medical cannabis oil to the more than 27,000 Georgians currently on the official registry.
The vote comes after nearly 10 years of legislative fights, bureaucratic wrangling, and lawsuits.
Up until now, it was legal to possess and use medical cannabis oil in Georgia, but it was illegal to grow here or bring it across state lines.
Many parents simply broke the law to bring it into Georgia from other states.
“This is the first set of dispensary licenses issued for the state of Georgia,” GAMCC Executive Director Andrew Turnage announced seconds after the vote.
Shannon Cloud worked for nine years to get the legislation passed. Her daughter used the oil to help treat a rare genetic disorder.
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“It’s an exciting day,” Cloud said. “Patients have had to take great risks meeting people on the streets, potentially making the oil in their own home, getting it from other states, and a lot of people have taken huge risks in order to even obtain the oil they needed for their medicine.”
Former state Rep. Allen Peake, a Macon Republican, pushed the original legislation to legalize the oil through even though he said he knew it would cost him politically. He retired from the Georgia House in 2018.
Since then, he’s helped transport the oil into Georgia illegally and got it into the hands of patients on the official registry free of charge.
“It’s nice to see the finished product of something you’ve worked on for a long time, and this is something that we’ve been very passionate about, and a lot of courageous families have worked very hard to get this to happen in Georgia,” Peake said. “It’s been one of the real honors of my life to be involved with these very courageous families.”
The two companies approved Wednesday, Trulieve Georgia and Botanical Sciences, LLC, have 120 days to have their dispensaries up and running, but few doubt it will take that long.
Trulieve already has a storefront on North Cobb Parkway in Marietta. There will be other dispensaries set up across the state.
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