Politics
Medical Marijuana Can Be Delivered In The Mail By USPS Under Trump’s Rescheduling Move, Georgia Officials Say
Georgia regulators are proposing new rules that will allow medical marijuana to be delivered directly to patients—including via the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and private carriers like FedEx and UPS.
The change, officials with the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission (GMCC) say, is being made possible by the Trump administration’s move to reclassify medical cannabis, which effectively federally legalizes it.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche in April issued an order that immediately reclassified state-licensed medical cannabis, as well as marijuana products approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to Schedule III.
Under a separate order the acting attorney general signed, a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) hearing is being held to consider more comprehensively moving marijuana to Schedule III.
“We think this provides a great pathway. It maintains the same tracking standards that the commission has, and it really leverages the authority in that DEA rescheduling order for state-regulated medical marijuana program,” Andrew Turnage, GMCC’s executive director, said of the new proposed rules in a meeting on Thursday. “Without these regulations, we don’t have guidelines in place for things like delivery. We think it’s really important to put those guardrails in place and establish standards.”
He noted that Georgia is a “very large state” and that it has been hard for some patients to easily access the medical cannabis that their doctors have recommended.
“Patients in many areas are having to travel two hours or more, either into a congested metropolitan area or around large geographic divides—whether that’s the mountains, the rivers, or the lakes, and it makes it impossible to get east to west across our great state, Turnage said.
The GMCC official noted that one of the “greatest values” of the new proposed delivery rules will be getting cannabis to patients in healthcare facilities, including those such as nursing homes where they are permanent residents.
“This creates a much more secure transaction for that healthcare facility to be able to make a purchase at our dispensaries and have that shipped and delivered securely to those facilities, without presenting a risk for diversion, without presenting a risk for, frankly, theft, robbery, an attack in the parking lot,” he said.
The proposed rules change states that:
“Where delivery is performed by the U.S. Postal Service, a common carrier, the Commission, or a common carrier engaged by the Commission, the dispensing licensee shall use certified mail, or a carrier service providing equivalent tracking and proof of delivery, with delivery restricted to, and the signature required of, the patient, caregiver, or healthcare institution employee. No person other than the registered patient, the patient’s caregiver, or the listed healthcare institution employee may sign for or accept such delivery. A dispensing licensee shall record the certified mail receipt, tracking number, or other information evidencing proof of delivery in the Commission-approved tracking system immediately upon completion of delivery.”
GMCC will meet on September 16 to receive public feedback on the delivery issue and other proposed rules changes before holding another meeting on September 30 to vote on adopting the reforms.
It’s not clear if there will be any federal or state pushback to the idea of medical marijuana being delivered via USPS, or if the private carriers noted in the rules will have any hesitation about participating, given the ongoing evolution of cannabis’s legal status under U.S. law.
Officials with USPS, FedEx, UPS and DHL did not immediately respond to Marijuana Moment’s request for comment.
This isn’t the first time the state has pushed the envelope of what’s federally acceptable with its medical marijuana program. In 2023, the DEA warned Georgia pharmacies that they could potentially lose their federal registrations if they began dispensing THC products under a provision of state law.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s medical cannabis program is seeing a huge influx in the number of registered patients as the state implements a recently enacted law that expands access.
The legislation, which Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed in May and which officially took effect on July 1, adds new qualifying conditions for the program, allows patients to vaporize medical cannabis and changes THC potency limits, among other reforms.
Gary Long, the CEO of Botanical Sciences, a Georgia-based medical cannabis company, recently predicted that the expanded law could triple the number of patients by mid-2027.
Under the legislation, patients with lupus are allowed to legally access medical marijuana, building on the state’s prior law that allowed certain people with cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, autism spectrum disorder, intractable pain and other conditions to qualify.
The policy, which was sponsored in the legislature by Sen. Matt Brass (R), also removes the requirement for many conditions that the patient’s status be severe or end-stage to be allowed to enter the medical cannabis program.
The reform also expands how patients can use medical marijuana. Previously they were able to access oils, tinctures, capsules, lozenges, topicals and transdermal patches—but now vaping is allowed as delivery method for people over 21 years of age, though smoking continues to be prohibited for all patients.
The Putting Georgia’s Patients First Act additionally replaces the current 5 percent THC potency cap for medical cannabis products with a limit of 12,000 milligrams of THC that a patient can possess at any one time.
“These changes, while meaningful to the affected patients, do not materially alter where Georgia sits in the national landscape on this issue,” Kemp said in a signing statement. “This bill passed with a constitutional majority in both chambers of the General Assembly.”
“I, like many of those who expressed opposition to this bill, have reservations about the legalization of recreational cannabis. Many states that have legalized recreational cannabis have come to regret that decision,” he said. “I also recognize that for some patients, medical cannabis provides significant relief to symptoms that would otherwise go untreated or would be treated with even more harmful opioids.”
“I do not believe that a well-implemented medical cannabis program must inevitably lead to the legalization of recreational use in Georgia, nor is the question of recreational use anywhere in the bill on my desk for signature,” the governor said.
The new law also replaces references to “low THC oil” in current law with “medical cannabis.”
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The Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission, which oversees the program, also now has a new duty of conducting public awareness activities about “effective uses of medical cannabis and products, including, but not limited to, publishing materials and conducting outreach and public education activities to inform members of the public, law enforcement, and healthcare providers about the medical cannabis program in this state and the potential benefits that medical cannabis and products may have to eligible patients.”
Last year, House leaders created a Blue-Ribbon Study Committee on Georgia’s Medical Marijuana and Hemp Policies to examine the state’s cannabis laws.
Lawmakers in Georgia have also considered legislation to support research on the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics.
