Peake files medical marijuana bill | State Legislature | Macon.com

ATLANTA — Georgia is getting serious about medical marijuana with the filing of a bill Tuesday by state Rep. Allen Peake.

The eight-page document he placed in the state House’s inbox would open the way for doctors at academic research centers to recommend an oil derived from cannabis to treat acute epilepsy.

“I feel very comfortable we will have a hearing, maybe several hearings,” said Peake, R-Macon, just after filing what’s now House Bill 885.

It would work by amending an old law that allows medical marijuana research for glaucoma and cancer. (It also cuts the word “marijuana” throughout and replaces it with “cannabis.”)

The bill would allow what it calls cannabis extracts and compounds, including but not limited to “cannabidiol,” or CBD, a non-hallucinogenic chemical derived from marijuana that’s already in use in some states.

“The evidence that’s there relating to seizure disorders looks like when it is added on, it sometimes has very dramatic results,” said state Rep. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, Peake’s first co-sponsor and the only physician in the House.

via Peake files medical marijuana bill | State Legislature | Macon.com.