Georgia state regulators have approved a new rule allowing home delivery of medical cannabis products to registered patients through the mail and other carriers. Whether the U.S. Postal Service or private-sector delivery companies will participate and deliver cannabis to patients remains to be seen, however.
The Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission (GMCC) approved new regulations for the state program at its September 30 meeting, Marijuana Moment reported. The home delivery rule was included in a package of reforms for issues including business license applications, product tracking, recalls and cannabis research.
State officials have said the new delivery rule was made possible by the federal government’s reclassification of medical cannabis earlier this year. Under the rescheduling order from then acting attorney general Todd Blanche, state-legal medical cannabis is now classified under Schedule III of the federal Controlled Substances Act.
The new rule adopted by the GMCC allows medical cannabis providers to ship products to registered patients and healthcare facilities via the USPS or other carriers such as UPS, FedEx and DHL.
“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,” the rule reads. “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.”
Medical Cannabis Will Be Available to More Patients with Home Delivery
State officials say home delivery will make Georgia’s medical cannabis program a viable option for more patients.
“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 about the new rule during an August meeting of the commission. “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.”
Turnage noted that Georgia is a “very large state” and that some patients with a medical cannabis recommendation from their doctor have difficulty obtaining their medicine of choice.
“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,” he said.
The GMCC chief added that one of the “greatest values” of the new delivery rule is a provision that allows delivery of medical cannabis products to patients in healthcare facilities including residential nursing homes.
“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,” said Turnage.
Tiffany Forbes, M.D., a Georgia physician authorized to issue medical cannabis certifications, says allowing mail delivery will ease access for patients.
“That’s huge because now it’s giving patients even more access to care,” Forbes told WRDW television news. “With the laws that we have on the books now, it really did limit some people to where they could pick up their medications. They qualified, but they would be sometimes an hour, two hours away from their local dispensary. So as a healthcare professional, not only do we want the medications available to our patients, but they have to be accessible as well.”
While Georgia’s newly approved rules permit home delivery of medical cannabis products, it is not yet clear if the USPS and other carriers will perform such deliveries. Nikolaj Hagen, a senior public relations representative for USPS, refused to confirm for Marijuana Moment whether the agency would participate in medical cannabis home delivery, while representatives from FedEx and UPS failed to respond to the publication’s inquiries.
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