Parents’ Weed Arrest Highlights Unfinished Georgia Law
Marijuana is not legal in Georgia, but possessing medical cannabis oil is if you quality with the Department of Public Health.
Ted S. Warren / Associated Press
Two Georgia parents arrested after admitting they tried to treat their son’s seizures with marijuana are making national headlines. The state’s incomplete approach to medical cannabis is at the heart of story.
Marijuana is not legal in the state, but possessing medical cannabis oil is if you quality with the Department of Public Health.
Getting that oil, however, is not so easy.
Lawmakers have not succeeded in legalizing a way to produce cannabis oil in-state, and carrying it across state lines is against federal law.
Allen Peake, a former state lawmaker, led the fight to change Georgia law for many years. He said the parents in Twiggs County do appear to have broken the law by letting their teenage son smoke marijuana.
“But it does show why we need to change that law, so that parents and families are not faced with these types of situations,” said Peake, who has turned the policy-making around medical cannabis crusade over to like-minded state lawmakers.
Peake himself said he still distributes cannabis oil to more than 600 Georgia families “who are properly registered with the state.” He pulls off the not-so-secret scheme by making a “donation” to an out of state manufacturer of cannabis oil. Later a box full of Georgia-legal doses of oil somehow find their way to Peake.
“It’s still a challenge. We’re on a 90 day waiting period because it’s hard to get the product to folks, and at some point, I may not be able to continue to sustain that,” said Peake.
He said almost all the families he works with are seeing positive results in treating their loved ones for a range of approved conditions. But they are a fraction of the more than 5,000 people have signed up for state medical cards in Georgia.
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