Georgia’s Hope Act (HB 324, 2019) — The 9-Year Wait, GMCC, & Production Licensing

Last verified: May 2026

What HB 324 Created

Georgia’s Hope Act, codified at O.C.G.A. § 16-12-200 et seq., created the in-state-production framework that Haleigh’s Hope Act (HB 1, 2015) had not. Specifically:

• A new agency, the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission (GMCC), administratively attached to the Office of the Secretary of State for budget and HR purposes but functionally independent on licensing.
• Authority to issue up to six in-state production licenses:
  • Two Class 1 licenses — indoor cultivation up to 100,000 sq ft of canopy.
  • Four Class 2 licenses — indoor cultivation up to 50,000 sq ft of canopy.
• Authority to license up to five (later expanded) dispensaries per production licensee, with additional dispensary licenses unlocked as the patient registry grows.
• A first-in-the-nation pilot allowing independent pharmacies to dispense low-THC oil under a Georgia Board of Pharmacy license.

The Six Producers

The 9-Year Delay Nobody Planned For

The application window opened in November 2020. By July 2021, GMCC had named tentative winners. Then the lawsuits started. More than 30 separate legal actions were filed seeking to block licensure (per attorney Vincent Russo’s count), and many of the records were sealed under O.C.G.A. § 16-12-220 — a confidentiality provision that the Georgia First Amendment Foundation unsuccessfully challenged all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court (cert denied October 11, 2023).

The Class 1 licenses were finally issued on September 21, 2022:

• Botanical Sciences, LLC (Glennville, Tattnall County) — Georgia’s first physician-owned cannabis company, led by CEO Gary Long.
• Trulieve GA, Inc. (Adel) — subsidiary of Florida-based multistate operator Trulieve Cannabis Corp., the largest U.S. medical-cannabis operator by revenue.

The first legal in-state sale of medical cannabis in Georgia history occurred on April 28, 2023, when Trulieve cut the ribbon on dispensaries in Macon (Bibb County) and Marietta (Cobb County). That is eight years and twelve days after Gov. Deal signed Haleigh’s Hope. Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers called it "the first" of what would become five Georgia retail locations for the company.

Class 2 Licenses Issued November 2023

The four Class 2 licenses were held up by litigation for two more years and finally issued provisionally on November 15, 2023, after a favorable Georgia Court of Appeals ruling:

• C2PRO001 — FFD GA Holdings LLC (d/b/a Fine Fettle), Macon.
• C2PRO002 — TheraTrue Georgia, LLC, Louisville — a Black-owned operator backed by Atlanta entrepreneur Paul Judge.
• C2PRO003 — Natures GA, LLC, Dublin.
• C2PRO004 — Treevana Remedy Inc., Milledgeville.

The Pharmacy Pilot & the DEA Pushback

Pharmacy sales — projected to put 90% of Georgians within a 30-minute drive of medical cannabis access — went live in October 2024 after the Georgia Board of Pharmacy approved rules. According to Botanical Sciences CEO Gary Long, quoted in Business of Cannabis in October 2024, the Board signed up nearly 120 exclusive, independent pharmacy partners to dispense Botanical Sciences’ products statewide; the figure was confirmed in NORML and Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporting (cited by Marijuana Moment, November 2024). CVS and Walgreens, regulated by federal frameworks, declined to participate.

⚠︐ On November 27, 2024, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration sent warning letters to participating pharmacies stating that dispensing Schedule I marijuana violated federal law. The GMCC discussed the warnings at a December 13, 2024 meeting; some pharmacies suspended sales, while the commission, chaired by Sid Johnson with Andrew Turnage as executive director, publicly committed to continuing patient access. See pharmacy-dispensing page.

Snapshot of Operating Dispensaries (May 2026)

As of the GMCC’s most recent license verification, the program has roughly 18 active dispensaries plus the ~120 partner pharmacies:

• Trulieve — Macon, Marietta, Newnan, Pooler (outside Savannah), Evans (outside Augusta), Columbus.
• Botanical Sciences — Marietta, Pooler, Chamblee, Stockbridge, Atlanta (West Midtown).
• The Class 2 operators (Fine Fettle, TheraTrue, Natures GA, Treevana) operate initial retail locations in Smyrna, Athens, Decatur, Milledgeville, and additional Atlanta sites.

Program Scale

The Continuing Critique

Despite Georgia’s Hope Act’s ambition, the program has the lowest adoption rate of any U.S. medical-cannabis program — about 0.3% of Georgia’s 11.3 million residents, compared with roughly 4% in neighboring Florida. The slow growth reflects three structural constraints baked into the original Haleigh’s Hope framework that HB 324 left unaltered:

• The 5% THC ceiling (which excludes most products patients see in the press).
• The prohibition on flower, edibles, and vaping.
• The perception, repeatedly noted in the GMCC’s own annual reports, that "low THC oil" sounds like a watered-down hemp product rather than therapeutic medical cannabis.

SB 220 (2026), if signed by Gov. Kemp by ~May 12, 2026, addresses all three. See SB 220 page.