Maybe it caught your attention along I-75 south in Byron: a billboard advertising the sale of cannabis, also known as marijuana.
John Cater from Macon saw the YourCannabisOMS.com billboard. It’s an online marijuana dispensary.
“Edible Cannabis is legal in Georgia, that’s what the billboard says, so it must be true,” Cater said.
State Representative Allen Peake of Macon, who crafted Georgia's medical marijuana law, says that's not the case.
“I don’t know how they're saying that. I wrote the law, I know the law, and medical cannabis oil is the only form that you can legally possess in Georgia,” Peake said.
He says to legally possess it, you have to have one of eight medical conditions and register with the state.
“Once they have that cannabis card, they can legally possess medical cannabis oil only here in Georgia, but they still have to go obtain it from somewhere else,” Peake said.
This means that you can buy it online or travel to a state where buying it is legal. You can’t buy it in a store here in Georgia.
That’s where a company like YourCannabisOMS.com could come in.
The company's Facebook page says their products are made with Cannabidiol, or CBD oil. That’s the oil allowed by Georgia law, but Peake says it can’t be in that form advertised on this billboard.
“Technically, according to Georgia law, you can only possess medical cannabis in oil form,” Peake said.
Bibb Sheriff David Davis says if you order what's on this billboard, that could lead to trouble.
“Law enforcement would investigate it, follow up, and look and see what the ingredients are if someone made a complaint of it,” Davis said. “As in all advertising, sometimes all of the truth is not there.”
Cater says it may not be entirely true now, but believes it’s the direction the state's medical marijuana law are headed.
“It’s already been legalized in certain states and, once again, once my generation gets to the helm, I think we'll see it more prevalent,” Cater said.
We reached out to the company who put up the billboard, YourCannabisOMS.com, but have yet to receive a response.
