ATLANTA – Legislation aimed at clearing up the legal morass that has delayed Georgia’s medical marijuana program for years died in the waning hours of this year’s General Assembly session, eventually a victim of its own weight.
The state Senate balked at major 11th-hour changes the Georgia House made to House Bill 196, including inserting an entirely different bill regarding the regulation of hemp products into the underlying medical cannabis measure.
Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, House Bill 196’s chief sponsor, took to the House floor Wednesday with a new version of the legislation calling for abolishing the commission lawmakers created in 2019 to oversee the medical cannabis program and turning over its duties to the Georgia Department of Agriculture.
The commission has been criticized for taking too long to begin awarding licenses to companies to grow marijuana in Georgia and convert the leafy crop to low-THC oil for sale to patients suffering from a range of diseases.
But the version of the bill the Senate had passed earlier in the week stopped short of getting rid of the commission by authorizing the agriculture department to study how the commission was handling the program and return by Dec. 1 with recommendations.
“It seems unfair to unilaterally abolish a commission without holding any hearings on that,” Senate Regulated Industries Committee Chairman Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, said Wednesday night when the bill got to the Senate floor.
The House bill also sought to address the rash of lawsuits filed by nine companies that lost bids for licenses that are holding up the licensing process by asking Agriculture Commissioner Tyler Harper to mediate their complaints by May 31. Mediation could lead to those companies being awarded licenses if they agreed to drop the legal challenges, Powell said.
“We’re not saying the…
Read the full article here