Pre-legislative Coffee offers platform for business owners to express concerns about marijuana and hemp productions becoming legal in Georgia
As Georgia elected officials prepare to reduce the state’s budget by 4-percent, several local business leaders are fearful of marijuana becoming legal in the state to generate revenue to balance the state’s budget.
This was one concern addressed during the Toccoa-Stephens County Chamber of Commerce’s annual Pre-Legislative Coffee event.
ASI’s Doug Hitchens asked State Representative for District 28 Chris Erwin and 50th District State Senator John Wilkinson what employers can do to better prepare in the likelihood that marijuana and hemp production becomes legal in Georgia.
“I want to change gears here, I want to move to the other side of the balance sheet and talk about the problem that we’ve been running into very heavily in our industry—not just here in Georgia, but in Chicago, New York, California and other places I’m at. With a lot of cuts, one of the things a lot of states are doing to address their shortfall of revenue are legalizing marijuana and the usage, growing and farming of hemp. I’d like to know, here in Georgia, what is the House talking about, what is the Governemnt talking about,” he asked?
Wilkinson responded to Hitchens’ question.
“[I] chair the Ag Committee, we handled the hemp bill last year, we didn’t handle the medical cannabis bill in our committee, and obviously those two things are different issues. You talked about hemp, and hemp has a very low THC level. Now, the State of Georgia did not legalize Hemp production. Our legislator did not legalize hemp. The 2018 Farm Bill legalized hemp, and in that federal legislator, they gave each state’s Department of Agriculture the responsibility to come up with a plan to handle the production of hemp. But our department of agriculture asked the legislator to come up with a plan. They could have submitted a plan on their own, but they decided for let us handle that one,” he said.
Erwin said that he thinks the House will be discussing Marijuana and Hemp production during this session.
“I think you’ll hear discussion, at least in the House, about what we have voted on in the past and what effect it is having, and then how do we work with that,” he said.
Other topics addressed during the pre-legislative coffee included discussions on the state’s budget, a plan to continue fully funding the Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula, and plans to improve mental health access.
For questions regarding the Pre-legislative Coffee event, or the upcoming Georgia General Assembly contact Erwin 678-858-3865 or Wilkinson at 706-224-4942.