Medical marijuana: Sen. Hufstetler’s response
A column posted on the editorial page claimed to know that I was against medical marijuana and that my opponent in the race was for it. Such a simplistic column needs a response.
He is correct that I voted against bills that were in the general session. The first bill would allow product to be used from places such as Colorado since no product was available in Georgia. Some studies had demonstrated that some children with a certain form of epilepsy were helped by a product of the marijuana plant, but the active ingredient in that study was the second most common ingredient found in marijuana, a substance called cannabidiol, not THC. One product that was recommended out of Colorado purported to have this substance and to be less than 0.3 percent of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. When the bill arrived in the Senate I noticed that the 0.3 percent low THC had been changed to 3 percent. When I questioned the author of the bill he said it was a typo and we changed it back to 0.3 percent. He would later go back in conference and change it to 3 percent and then eventually it was raised to 5 percent. He called it low THC but the federal definition was 0.3 percent for low THC.
When I asked again why we were now up to 5 percent THC I was told that a couple of people that had visited Colorado had reported to be helped by the higher THC. No studies, just anecdotal evidence. In addition, a product was already available in Georgia at the Medical College of Georgia. It is named epidiolex and is produced by GW Pharmaceuticals, a British company, and contains low THC but a high level of cannabidiol. Cannabidiol is the substance that has shown promise and is both an antioxidant and neuroprotective. We offered to make this available to anyone who needed it. This product was used in the scientific studies. It was a pure, tested product, but science was not what was driving this. It was emotion.
Andy Lafrate, PhD, presented findings for the American Chemical Society. He tested the products coming out of Colorado. Many that claimed to be high in cannabidiol were in fact not, but were very high in THC. In fact, the strains in Colorado all seemed to have been bred to produce only high THC. He also found many contaminants in the 600 samples he tested, including fungi, heavy metals, pesticides, butane and hexane. Hexane is a toxic solvent found in gasoline. Hexane was being used to extract the oil out of the plant. So, I have a choice between a pure drug product available in Georgia for research or to send people to get product shipped or transported illegally through other states and that was being produced in the Colorado equivalent of meth labs in Georgia. In fact, just like meth labs here, there have been many fires and explosions in Colorado.
I was joined by others from the Senate Health committee who understood the dangers and voted against it. I knew the votes were there to pass it, but I went to the well and explained that while I supported cannabinoids being available in Georgia, I could not support sending people to unknown products from the Wild West labs of Colorado. These products have caused hospitalization and synthetic substitutes have caused death.
I, and some of my colleagues, have petitioned both the Obama administration and the Trump administration to move marijuana from a schedule 1 drug (no clinical value) to a schedule 2 drug. I am hopeful that the Trump administration will do so and that will make the product available with a prescription nationwide. We have also asked the FDA to make epidiolex available nationwide and they are scheduled to rule on this on June 27.
Many of these bills are complex and wrought with problems. The author even stated the problems with production, purchase and shipment in this bill. I would much rather this product be produced in Georgia to ensure the quality and purity of what we endorse for public use. From this standpoint I agree with the author that this was a bad bill. Quite often people email me or call me and ask why I voted a particular way. I generally can answer their concerns and so I also offer this to the editorial writer. I continue to hope that the federal government will remove the impediments to more research being done so that we can separate science from fiction and produce products that help those with their health needs both in this state and across our nation.