Days after medical marijuana legislation receives final passage in state Legislature, Gov. Nathan Deal signs an executive order setting the motion in process.
The bill allows those with eight medical conditions including seizure disorders, cancer, and ALS to legally possess cannabis oil for treatment.
Deal plans to sign the bill into law once the legislative session ends next week. He says other legislation might conflict with the bill and therefore found it prudent to wait.
The new law will allow families like Janea Cox to move back to Georgia from Colorado where her daughter Haleigh has been receiving cannabis oil to control her seizures the past year.
The order he signed Friday requires the Georgia Composite Medical Board to begin drafting a patient waiver and a certification form. The forms will be available to patients who qualify which then must be certified by a physician. Patients will then receive a registration card from the state that allows them to possess cannabis oil with no more than 5 percent THC.
She’s not worried about breaking any federal laws to get the medication here.
“We’ll be able to have it shipped to Georgia and be able to live normal lives without having to go back and forth,” says Cox.
She says the next step she and other parents will work towards is cultivation in Georgia. The bill creates a study commission to research an in-state grow program so cannabis oil could be manufactured and distributed here.
“Cultivation makes this a working bill, so we aren’t having to go out of state to get the medication; we can watch the medication being made and regulate it here,” says Cox.
The commission will report its findings by the end of the year.