Marijuana or pot tileATLANTA – Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal will announce Friday that he plans to sign a hard-fought medical marijuana bill into law after the 2015 General Assembly session ends April 2 and will order state agencies to begin preparing to implement it, his office said Wednesday.
An ecstatic state Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, had said earlier that Deal would sign the bill Friday on the Capitol steps in an 11 a.m. ceremony, but Deal’s spokesman, Brian Robinson, said that “probably” won’t happen due to normal procedural issues.
The bill cleared its final legislative hurdle moments earlier when the House voted 160-1 to approve a Senate compromise that only slightly tweaked Peake’s original House measure.
After the tally, ending two years of debate, an emotional House Speaker David Ralston hugged Janea Cox, 33, mother of 5-year-old Haleigh Cox, who has intractable epilepsy and is one of the 500,000 Georgians Peake said should benefit from the law.
“Some days make it all worthwhile,” Ralston said.