Products from marijuana and hemp are either dangerous and should be banned or amazing and should be accessible to those who need and want them, a Georgia House study committee heard Tuesday.
Lawmakers heard conflicting assertions and opinions during their first hearing ahead of possible changes to state policies for medical marijuana and hemp derivatives.
Several parents testified about children who developed schizophrenia after prolonged consumption of high-dose, off-the-shelf products.
“This is the biggest regulatory failure of my lifetime,” testified one mother, who didn’t want to be identified. She said she discovered that her son had a discount code for frequent purchases at one store.
Dr. Colin Murphy, a psychiatrist, testified that increased potency was driving induced psychosis, with fellow critics saying teenagers are especially vulnerable.
But several medical marijuana advocates testified about the relief the plant delivered for pain, allowing them to avoid addictive opioids and other drugs.
“What about the good things about cannabis? Cannabis saved my life,” said Yolanda Bennett, co-founder of the Georgia Medical Cannabis Society who suffers from a hormonal disorder.
The committee is delving into an area of policy that is as complicated as it is divisive.
It is following on stalemated attempts during this year’s General Assembly session to both increase the potency of medical marijuana and ban hemp beverages.
The area is fraught because the federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, making street use illegal. Georgia legalizes distribution with a doctor’s approval.
Yet, hemp, which comes from a related plant species, is legal under a 2018 federal law that allowed the plant to be used for products like rope. That federal law also allowed sales of the intoxicating part of the plant when limited to 3% of the product’s dry weight.
That has led to a hemp boom, from beverages to gummies.
The market is further complicated by synthetic derivatives that are not regulated. Last fall, the Georgia Department of Agriculture began focused regulatory enforcement of legal hemp regulations, but it was a largely unenforced area before then.
Katherine Russell, the agency’s policy director, said the industry is difficult to regulate because it is quickly evolving. She described a Florida company that is using orange peels to create cannabidiol, or CBD, a non-intoxicating compound also found in cannabis plants.
“You can regulate cannabis all day long, but if you can source your CBD from somewhere else, then the laws don’t actually cover that,” Russell said. “So the great thing about this emerging industry is that there are entrepreneurs involved, and it very much touches on the American spirit. But it also makes it very fast moving.”
The committee’s next hearing will be Aug. 21 in Augusta.
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