A new poll from Georgians for Freedom in Health Care and released by 11 Alive News in Atlanta says that nearly 85% of Peach State residents are in favor of expanding last year’s HB 1, which allowed for patients with specific illnesses to apply for and receive cannabis oil.
The problem with that bill is that while possessing up to 20 ounces of the oil, (which does not have enough THC to get a user ‘high’ in a recreational sense) is legal, it remains illegal to grow marijuana in Georgia, so patients, (or their parents) must travel to Colorado or another state where the drug is legal and then illegally transport it across state lines to get it back home.
As stated by the aforementioned poll, 84.5% of Georgians would be in favor of allowing the state to grow and produce medical marijuana, thereby eliminating the need to break the law to get cannabis oil, as well as making the process quicker and easier.
This process would have nothing to do with ‘medical marijuana’ in a California sense, (where prescriptions for glaucoma or any other number of fictitious maladies could score anyone a license to purchase the drug) but would be a heavily regulated means of production and sale of the medicinal oil only to afflicted citizens of the state. Representative Allen Peake, who authored and championed the bill earlier this year, has promised to keep up the fight to allow those Georgians who need cannabis oil to get it.
Said Peake to 11 Alive – “There is no issue in Georgia that unites our fellow citizens like this one. People all across our state, young and old, black and white, need this medicine and they expect our government to create an infrastructure where they can have access to a safe and legal product.”
Already Governor Nathan Deal has expressed concern over the notion of cultivating marijuana in the state, despite being emotionally in favor of HB 1 last legislative session. Why he would want to leave open a loophole that requires Georgia citizens to break multiple laws is open for speculation.
