“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” That old adage certainly fits a scenario playing out in the Georgia General Assembly.
House Bill 885 or “Haleigh’s Hope Act” — better known around the Gold Dome as the medical marijuana bill — began as a tightly drawn bill to provide children with intractable seizures access to an oil derived from a specific marijuana strain available only in Colorado.
This little-known product is “manufactured” by a group of marijuana-growing siblings — not physicians or scientists. It gained national notoriety thanks to the CNN special “Weed” and anecdotal reports by families of their children’s seemingly miraculous cures. As we studied this bill, we found that this oil hasn’t been tested for purity or consistency, and it hasn’t been tested in animals.
Parents desperate to alleviate their children’s suffering are petitioning legislatures to change state laws to allow the importation or production of this product, known as Charlotte’s Web oil.
Though federal authorities seem to be using Colorado and Washington state as mini laboratories to gauge the effects of full legalization, they have given both states strict rules to follow. Rule No. 1: It’s illegal to transport marijuana across state lines, whether exporting or importing. Break the rules, and the feds will swoop in. Colorado’s amnesty only extends to its state line.
HB 885 has been rewritten several times. Children and adults with any type of seizures, even minor ones, are now included. At one point, a single academic medical center would grow marijuana and produce the oil for clinical trials. That’s out, because our universities cannot legally be involved in growing, producing or testing illegal, non-FDA approved substances.
Since industrial hemp products aren’t intended for human use as “medicine,” and research universities cannot approve the use of non-FDA approved products, two provisions allowing hemp cultivation for the oil and the use of non-profit dispensaries to grow and produce it were also nixed.
The latest version says we won’t prosecute approved patients and caregivers having a Georgia prescription if they possess the oil in our state. Even so, Colorado won’t recognize a Georgia physician’s prescription for any form of marijuana, and Colorado and the feds still agree it’s illegal to remove this oil from that state. Our law could even unintentionally shut down the production of Charlotte’s Web.
One major question lingers: With the threat of malpractice lawsuits, will Georgia physicians continue to be responsible for the treatment of patients taking such a product? Unregulated, copycat versions are out there. A Georgia house painter is ready to sell his.
When you talk about growing marijuana, authorizing dispensaries or decriminalization, you’re talking the language of those wanting full legalization. “All-inclusive” medical marijuana bills are the first step. Although some chemicals in marijuana may have medicinal value, marijuana itself isn’t medicine. We just clamped down on Georgia’s pill mills, but “loosey goosey” medical marijuana programs with bogus medical ailments could become a “pot mill” epidemic.
Marijuana is a gateway drug. Research shows marijuana causes addiction in 9 percent of people who try it; 17 percent of adolescents who try it; and 25 to 50 percent of daily users. Persistent use during adolescence and into adulthood can result in an eight-point drop in I.Q., enough to plunge someone of average intelligence into the bottom third of the I.Q. scale.
The fate of HB 885 is still unknown, but there’s hope for these children. The drug Epidiolex is derived from marijuana and is FDA-approved for a type of compassionate program available to children with severe seizures where every child gets the real medicine. Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is exploring participation in such a program. Let’s encourage other research centers to do the same.
Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, is a member of the Georgia House of Representatives.
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