The Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission conducted a live streamed meeting on Wednesday that many observers thought might finally result in business applicants receiving licenses so they could manufacture medical marijuana. Yet the commission failed to issue any licenses, leaving applicants who have spent time and money during this process puzzled and confused as to what and when next steps will be taken.
The panel’s mission is to allow the manufacture of the product and make it available for approximately 14,000 registered Georgia patients in desperate need of legally obtaining cannabis oil for treatment. Back in November the commission’s chairman, Dr. Christopher Edwards, said it was important to get the process underway. “We want to keep patients in the forefront,” he said at the time. “And the longer this process goes on, the longer the time it takes for patients to receive help.
The commission said last fall that it hoped to issue licenses by March. Of course, it is now July. (Experts say it could take six months to a year before the oil is made available for patients suffering from illnesses ranging from chronic seizures to deadly cancers.)
Since the General Assembly legalized this distribution and treatment, a new and needed industry was supposed to emerge. It was just two years ago when the commission held its first meeting, tasked by law with creating a distribution network, establishing testing and industry regulations and issuing medical cultivation licenses. Yet almost nothing happened Wednesday night, with the exception of what the Commission said was discussion of “working papers, recorded information, documents and copies produced by, obtained by, or disclosed to the Commission… .”
By the way, at the Wednesday meeting, no date was announced for the next meeting.
