Assembly approves West Georgia lawmaker’s bill allowing marijuana-derived oil sales
Few can appreciate the passage of House Bill 324 more than Paulding resident Jim Wages.
Wages has been among a group of state residents who supported efforts to legalize the purchase of a low THC oil derived from marijuana in Georgia since 2014 to help sick family members.
The Georgia General Assembly late Tuesday, April 2, approved compromise legislation sponsored by District 67 State Rep. Micah Gravley, R-Douglasville, to allow up to six private companies to be licensed to grow marijuana and use it to manufacture the medicinal oil.
The bill moves to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature. Kemp, who reportedly helped both sides reach a compromise, has indicated he will sign it.
Gravley told a reporter he praised Kemp and Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan for helping gain approval for the often-controversial bill despite each being in their first terms of office and not involved in the six-year effort for passage.
The bill allows pharmacies to sell the oil but requires others wanting to dispense it to be licensed by a new Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission.
Physicians have approved about 8,400 Georgians to use the oil. It has been legal for them to possess the medicine but not buy it in Georgia since 2015.
Wages’ daughter, Sydney, suffers from seizures which the oil has greatly reduced. He has been forced to purchase it in other states and risk prosecution when transporting it to Georgia because the federal government has not approved it.
He and other longtime supporters, including Shannon and Blaine Cloud of Smyrna, were at the State Capitol in Atlanta when the bill passed shortly before midnight April 2 on the final day of the Assembly’s 2019 session.
Wages said in a Facebook post that “persistence pays off” for the supporters of the six-year effort.
“I want to thank the group I’m with here tonight and others out there that has worked tirelessly to get where we are tonight!” he wrote on Facebook.
Wages said he recalled the first year Gravley and former State Rep. Allen Peake of Macon tried to gain approval for the oil in 2014.
Peake, who began the effort for approval of the medicine’s sale, watched from the House gallery as the vote was taken.
“I was lying in the bed watching live,” Wages said. “I broke down and cried, holding my Sydney. I told them Daddy is not giving up!”
The original version of Gravley’s bill the House approved this year in early March would have allowed up to 10 companies to be licensed to grow and manufacture it. However, the Senate altered the bill and forced Gravley and other supporters to back compromise legislation to gain passage this year.
House members voted 147-16 and the Senate voted 34-20 for final approval. District 31 State Sen. Bill Heath, R-Bremen, who represents part of Paulding County; and District 52 State Sen. Chuck Hufstetler, R-Rome, whose district includes Bartow County, voted against it.