In its final meeting of 2024, the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission (GMCC) approved issuing yet another dispensing license in Georgia.
The six-chaired commission convened in a teleconferenced special called meeting, Wednesday, to vote on a license for a medical cannabis dispensary in Columbus, Ga., run by Tallahassee, Fla.-based company Trulieve.
Early in the meeting, GMCC Executive Director Andrew Turnage highlighted the commission’s registry of low-THC oil medical cannabis patients in the state, the number of which reached 25,000 since the GMCC’s last meeting on Nov. 13.
The Georgia Hope Act, which became law in 2019, permitted the commission to issue one additional low-THC medical cannabis dispensary license to any of its six current cannabis production licensees after 25,000 active patients had been registered—up to 36 total.
MORE: Local CBD Advocates react to new regulations
The commission opened a special application period, from Nov. 18 through 22, that coincided with this milestone, during which prospective licensees could submit for their own licenses. One of these was from Trulieve Georgia, for its location in Columbus.
After commission member Bill Prather put forth a motion to approve the licensing, and member Jason Shepherd seconded, the GMCC unanimously voted in favor of issuance.
The Columbus dispensary is Trulieve’s sixth licensed location in the state, and the first licensed dispensary in southwest Georgia, Turnage noted.
The licensing comes three months after Living Well Pharmacy in south Augusta received its license to dispense low-THC products by Botanical Sciences from the Georgia Board of Pharmacy, and one year after Trulieve opened its own dispensary in Evans.
Turnage had also referred to the GMCC’s listening tour, in which commissioners traveled to five Georgia college campuses between Oct. 24 and Nov 21 presenting information to the public about the patient registry and the Hope Act.
MORE: New hemp law takes effect soon in Georgia
“We’ve heard from potential patients who are interested. We’ve heard from individuals who do not have a condition that are currently covered under the approved conditions listed in the Hope Act,” Turnage said, noting also that the feedback GMCC staff received will be reflected in its report next month. “We’ve heard from veterans, we’ve heard from parents, we’ve heard from advocacy groups, nurses, heard from doctors, and we really have just gathered a tremendous amount of information.”
The GMCC’s vote also comes nearly two months after Georgia’s Department of Agriculture restricted CBD retailers from selling smokable flower products.
“We hear a lot of conversations about marijuana, and people have a lot of social issue emotions associated with that,” Turnage said. “When we come face to face, apart from those constituencies that want to advocate for a particular view, we hear the people that are actually getting access, or want to gain access to this registry, and it really has been heart touching to connect with them and hear their story so that we know we’re doing what we’re supposed to do.”
The next regular quarterly dispensing license application period will be from Jan. 27 through Jan. 31.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
