Almost a decade after the Georgia legislature legalized it, Athens residents finally have access to medical marijuana without driving to Atlanta now that the city’s first dispensary is open. Meanwhile, a new state law threatens the livelihood of existing head shops that sell marijuana-adjacent products without a prescription.
Fine Fettle—an outpost of one of six companies legally authorized to grow and sell medical marijuana in Georgia—opened about a month ago off Atlanta Highway near Target. Georgia market president Judson Hill, an Atlanta native, spent a decade working in the marijuana business out West before moving home last spring. The company has a growing and processing facility in Macon and two stores in metro Atlanta, with plans to open two more soon.
Georgia legalized medical marijuana in 2015, but the law was tied up in court until last year, when the state appeals court ruled against two companies that did not receive one of a limited number of licenses. The law lists 10 ailments that are eligible for a medical marijuana prescription, but Hill says most people are eligible because they suffer from some form of chronic pain or trauma. Hill himself became interested in marijuana as a pain reliever after being injured in a car crash. Telemedicine has also made it easier to receive a prescription. “It’s actually easier than most people think,” Hill says.
Once a person receives a prescription, it’s sent to the individual’s county health department, which issues a medical marijuana card. The process takes about a week, according to Hill.
There is one catch—dispensaries like Fine Fettle are not allowed to sell the flower or bud itself. Instead, dispensaries are limited to selling capsules and pills, balms and oils called tinctures.
“We’d love to be able to sell the flower, but I think legislators are still a little scared when they see the flower,” says Hill, whose father was a state senator when the law passed. “Any medical store, when you get the flowers, that’s when the patients really start coming in.”
While dispensaries waited for the legal process to play out, other head shops blossomed selling products derived from hemp, such as CBD, Delta 8 and Delta 9-THCA. Under the 2018 federal farm bill, those products are legal as long as they contain less than 0.3% THC. The Delta 8 and Delta 9-THCA chemicals have similar qualities to THC, though, and while CBD doesn’t produce a high, users say it has a calming and pain-dulling effect.
But at least one local hemp shop, Classic City Hemp, has already closed as a result of a new state law that took effect Tuesday, the store announced on social media Monday, and more could follow.
An amendment to the Georgia Hemp Farming Act the state legislature passed last spring requires hemp products to be tested and limits Delta 9-THCA similarly to Delta 9-THC. It also bans advertisements that appeal to children, some edibles like chocolates (though not gummies) and the sale of all hemp products to anyone under 21. “Kids go into these gas stations and buy gas, and this stuff is being sold, and nobody knows what’s in it, and nobody’s checking it, and that’s just scary,” the law’s sponsor, Sen. Sam Watson (R-Moutrie) told the Georgia Recorder.
The law was supposed to take effect July 1, but the state Department of Agriculture delayed implementation until Oct. 1 to decide how to enforce the law. At press time, the final regulations were still unclear. Dave Williams, owner of Loving Botanicals, said the last information he received was that the agriculture department was looking at banning the sale of hemp flowers and limiting the amount of THCA that can be purchased, but would not ban vapes.
Blake Aued Hemp buds like these will soon be leaving shelves at local head shops.
The Georgia Medical Cannabis Society called SB 494 a clandestine effort to bring back prohibition: “At its core, SB 494 presents a labyrinth of compliance hurdles that threaten to ensnare the unassuming farmer, processor, retailer and consumer alike.”
Williams has sheaves of chemical analyses for his products already. He says the hemp industry is open to reasonable regulations, but he worries that if regulations go too far, people will go back to buying weed from illicit dealers—potentially weed that’s laced with deadly fentanyl. “There’s nothing here that will kill you,” he says, adding that natural hemp- and mushroom-derived products are safer than alcohol and more beneficial than pharmaceuticals.
Williams also says many of his customers don’t want a medical marijuana card because they don’t want to wind up in a government database. “People are afraid of buying it in the street,” he says. “If they can’t buy it here, what kind of market do they create? A giant black market.”
With medical marijuana now competing with hemp, Hill asserts that the former is superior. “It’s a stronger and better product, and frankly it’s safer than what’s sold in those smoke shops,” he says.
Williams disagrees. “We essentially sell the same products,” he says. The plant is no different—the only difference is the way it’s grown and the amount of THC it includes when harvested.
He contends that hemp shops and producers are mainly small businesses, whereas the medical marijuana industry is dominated by a few major players, pointing to Florida, where the marijuana company Trueliev has spent almost $90 million in support of a recreational marijuana referendum. “The state wants to ban smokeable flower,” he says, “but they don’t know why.”
In the end, Williams believes the conflict between Georgia’s 2024 hemp law and the 2018 federal farm bill that redefined legal hemp products will wind up in court. “I would say there’s a greater chance than not that an individual or a trade organization would file for a federal injunction” if the Georgia regulations go too far, he says.
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Almost a decade after the Georgia legislature legalized it, Athens residents finally have access to medical marijuana without driving to Atlanta now that the city’s first dispensary is open. Meanwhile, a new state law threatens the livelihood of existing head shops that sell marijuana-adjacent products without a prescription. Fine Fettle—an outpost of one of six companies legally authorized to grow and sell medical marijuana in Georgia—opened about a month ago off Atlanta Highway near Target. Georgia market president Judson Hill, an Atlanta native, spent a decade working in the marijuana business out West before moving home last spring. The company has a growing and processing facility in Macon and two stores in metro Atlanta, with plans to open two more Read More