Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 2015
Source: Gwinnett Daily Post, The (GA)
Copyright: 2015 Post-Citizen Media Inc.
Contact:  http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2480
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Author: Dick Yarbrough

MACON LEGISLATOR ON MISSION TO LEGALIZE MEDICAL MARIJUANA IN GEORGIA

Allen Peake is a man on a mission. The five-term Republican state 
representative from Macon is the driving force behind proposed 
legislation to legalize medical marijuana in Georgia. He may succeed 
this year after suffering a setback in 2014 when the House and Senate 
got into a bit of political brinksmanship at the last minute and 
failed to pass his bill, which had sailed through the House with only 
four negative votes.

Undaunted, Peake is back again with H.B. 1. He has the support of 
Gov. Nathan Deal (albeit with a few conditions) and House Speaker 
David Ralston. And with an Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll showing 
84 percent of Georgians favor passage of medical marijuana 
legislation, I suspect he has the Senate's attention, as well.

I have been around the political block more than a few times and I 
can quickly discern public pandering from genuine passion. Allen 
Peake is passionate about this issue. Deeply passionate.

I asked him how he became involved. He said a mutual friend called 
him at the beginning of the legislative session last year and asked 
him to talk to a friend of hers whose 4-year-old daughter was having 
as many as 200 seizures a day. The mother was going to have to take 
her daughter to Colorado where a derivative of marijuana seems to 
have an impact on seizure disorders.

"I told her to have her friend email me which she did," he said. 
"When I heard from the mother, I politely suggested she contact her 
own state representative. She wrote back and said, ‘I did. You 
are my state representative.'" Touche.

Rep. Peake then met little Haleigh Cox. "It was the first week of the 
session," he remembers, "and she was in the hospital in ICU. That's 
when it hit me. I have a 4-year-old granddaughter. I would crawl over 
broken glass to do whatever it took for her to have access to the 
medicine she needed."

For Haleigh, that medicine is cannabis oil, derived from the 
marijuana plant, but which doesn't create the high that recreational 
users seek.

In order to get access to cannabis oil treatment, families have to 
split up with the mother and child moving out of state and leaving 
loved ones behind. It's disruptive, traumatic, expensive and, Peake 
said, "It's crazy. Why are we forcing Georgia families to have to do 
this? That is what set me on a mission. I didn't care what it took or 
what it cost me politically, I was determined that we were going to 
pass legislation that would keep families from being torn apart and 
that would provide some relief and hope for these children. So off we 
went." Did he ever.

In addition to his legislative efforts, Peake established Journey for 
Hope, a charitable fund to provide financial assistance for those 
families. "It takes about $15,000 per family for moving expenses plus 
six months of rent," he says, "and we have already moved 12 families 
to Colorado."

There are still some hurdles to overcome this session if Peake's bill 
is to pass. Deal wants a committee established to recommend how 
cannabis oil would be produced and distributed in Georgia and the 
findings presented to the General Assembly by the end of the year. 
Peake says he is OK with that.

If H.B. 1 becomes law, the measure would ensure decriminalization 
immediately for Georgia families seeking medical cannabis. They would 
be able to go to another state to legally obtain the medicine and 
then come back home without fear of being prosecuted.

"Families now in Colorado will be able to come home immediately," 
Peake says. "They will likely have to go back every three to six 
months for the next year-and-a-half to pick up medicine, but they 
will be protected in Georgia for possession." Not having to 
underwrite living expenses in Colorado would mean Journey of Hope 
would be able to assist even more families financially in the future.

By the way, does the treatment work? Peake says children who have 
suffered 150-200 seizures a day are experiencing as little as one a 
day and sometimes will go a week without a seizure once they have 
access to the medicine.

Since Rep. Allen Peake began his effort to legalize medical 
marijuana, three children who were at the Capitol last year with 
their families to lobby for passage of his bill have died. "I won't 
stand by and let that continue to happen," he says quietly. I believe 
him. The man is on a mission.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom