DEA Threats Rankle Georgia Pharmacies Intending To Legally Sell Medical Marijuana, Advocates Also Irked

Ira Katz’s Little Five Points Pharmacy is one of the dozens of independent drugstores that intended to provide medical marijuana (MMJ) after Georgia became the first and only in the nation to undertake a program of dispensing MMJ in a state where there are only seven dispensaries to serve some 15,000 patients and caregivers.

DEA Steps In

Then last week, the DEA sent Georgia pharmacies a warning letter reminding them that cannabis is still illegal at the federal level. 

That put a damper on the pharmacy program that was meant to enable about 90% of Georgia's population to be within a 30-minute drive of a drug store that sells medical marijuana. 

“I’m very, very, very disappointed with it,” Katz told 11Alive.com. 

Katz said he received an email from the DEA last week and then a written letter Monday.

“It just doesn’t make any sense to me that people can go to a dispensary and not to a pharmacy. We would be buying it from the same growers," Katz said. “We’re the most regulated industry in healthcare. That’s what shocked me. That’s what blows me away when it comes to why the DEA is not moving on this. They don’t see what we see here every single day. Patients are going to come into a pharmacy because they trust us. They understand we are the drug experts." 

Opioid Addiction Comes Into Play 

"For chronic pain, we believe that if we can get patients off these high doses of opioids, the hydrocodone, the oxycodone, the combinations of these things, then through the use of medical cannabis, we believe we can help contribute to slowing down this opiate crisis," Katz said.

The DEA’s Behavior Blows A Lot Of People Away

“It’s ridiculous. It’s very frustrating. We have children that are sick that need medicine and need safe, legal access, and in Georgia it seems like every time we take a step forward, there’s pushback,” Todd Heydel of Peachtree NORML told AtlantaNewsFirst.

Alicia Hughes, a visiting law professor at Emory University and interim director for the Center of Civil Rights and Social Justice, added to the sentiment.

"Georgia has come up with the most responsible way to get medical marijuana into the hands of the people who need it," Hughes told Fox5.

Hughes says the DEA’s position contradicts Georgia law and could throw pharmacies into confusion. 

"It’s an extraordinary paradox," Hughes said. "Now, despite the fact that we’ve been very responsible through how we’ve done this, you’re telling us ‘No.'" 

Photo: Benzinga edit with images from Tbel Abuseridze on Unsplash, Gordon Johnson on Pixabay and Wikimedia Commons