Supporters of a bill that would legalize limited use of medical marijuana in Georgia won approval Wednesday from a key state Senate committee, giving them hope they can get it passed before the 2014 legislative session ends next week.
There’s just one catch: Senate Health and Human Services Chairwoman Renee Unterman, R-Buford, attached a separate piece of legislation to House Bill 885 that would require health insurance policies sold in Georgia to cover behavioral therapy for children 6 and under who have been diagnosed with autism.
The move makes extended negotiations over the bill likely, further complicating passage for what Unterman has dubbed the “Kids Care Act.”
HB 885’s original sponsor, Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, took the changes in stride. It gave him an opportunity to move the bill forward, while also making changes to the medical marijuana part of the bill that he felt bettered its chances.
Those changes would provide immunity from prosecution to anyone who is in possession of the particular cannabis oil the bill wants to make legal. They would clear the way for patients and their parents to travel outside of Georgia to find a supply, most likely in Colorado because it allows the oil’s use in limited amounts.
HB 885 is designed to allow Georgia families use of cannabis oil to treat certain seizure disorders in both children and adults, afflictions that can cause hundreds of seizures a day and often lead to death. The oil is harvested from the marijuana plant but does not create the high that recreational use of marijuana produces.
As in the state House, which passed the bill earlier this month, parents of children who suffer severe seizures testified on the bill’s behalf. Among them was Janea Cox, who said she and her daughter Haleigh leave Thursday for a permanent move to Colorado as they battle the more than 200 seizures a day that threaten the 4-year-old’s life.
The bill also gained new support from the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, with Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter having spent a good portion of Tuesday night helping craft new language for the bill that eased concerns for law enforcement officials.
“The prosecutors of this state are not interested in depriving children or adults of medical (help) as long as it doesn’t open the door to legalizing recreational use of marijuana,” Porter said.
Peake said that was not likely: “It’s not a slippery slope,” he said. Other supporters include the Medical Association of Georgia, the state’s largest professional group of physicians.
Supporters had struggled to craft language that creates a safe supply of the oil.
Peake said the bill would allow for the state’s research institutions to prepare for the day that federal law is eased to allow the cultivation of the marijuana plant for medicinal purposes. However, because federal law still bans the oil, those who travel to Colorado to buy it could still face prosecution if they travel through states that do not allow it.
The immunity from prosecution provision is designed to protect those who enter Georgia legally with the cannabis oil.
The bill would still limit the number of patients who would qualify for the treatment and require multiple levels of approval before its use is allowed.
Committee members voted unanimously for the amended bill, although Senate Minority Leader Steve Henson, D-Tucker, opposed the autism amendment. Unterman pursued that change because a separate bill mandating the insurance coverage — which the Senate passed unanimously last month — has stalled in the House.
HB 875 is expected to go before the full Senate for a vote as soon as Tuesday.
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