COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Georgia’s first medical marijuana dispensary will open its doors Friday in Cobb County, making it legal for patients to buy medical cannabis oil.

In a unanimous virtual vote, the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission approved dispensary licenses to two companies to begin distributing medical cannabis oil to the more than 27,000 Georgians currently on the official registry.

Thanks to the vote, the Trulieve Medical Marijuana Dispensary will be open in Marietta starting at 10 a.m. Friday.

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.

Truelieve is one of the two approved companies in Georgia ready to help.

Shannon Cloud said she worked for nine years to get the legislation passed. As a result, her daughter used the oil to help treat a rare genetic disorder.

“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.”

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