Shannon Cloud’s daughter has been having seizures her whole life. She’s twenty years old, registered in Georgia’s medical cannabis program, and according to her mother, Senate Bill 220 — the “Putting Georgia’s Patients First Act” — represents the kind of flexibility that could finally let her doctors find a THC:CBD combination that actually works.
It’s been years in the making. And on May 12, 2026, Governor Brian Kemp signed it into law anyway — despite a group of physicians sending him a letter asking him to kill it. The claims in that letter deserve a much closer look than they’ve gotten.
“It allows more flexibility for patients and doctors to access what’s really going to work for them,” Cloud told WABE, “taking away the really tight restrictions.”
Before Kemp signed SB220, a group of physicians had sent him a letter asking him to kill it — and the claims in that letter deserve a much closer look than they’ve gotten.
The Letter, and What It Actually Says
The letter, authored by psychiatrist Dr. Karen Drexler and signed by fellow physician Dr. Elizabeth McCord, among others, makes some incredibly bold claims.
It states that SB 220 would “authorize high-risk cannabis products, such as vapes and concentrates, that have no demonstrated safety or benefit for any medical condition” and warns of increased risks of “psychosis, addiction, seizures, heart attacks, cognitive impairment, and other serious health harms.”
It also frames the bill’s possession limit—12,000 milligrams of THC—as “the equivalent of more than 1,700 marijuana joints,” a number designed to strike worry and/or fear into anyone who is on the fence about medical marijuana.
But let’s take a look at these one at a time.
“No Demonstrated Safety or Benefit” — Says Who?
The claim that vaporized cannabis has no demonstrated …
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Author: Julia Granowicz-Johnson / High Times
