Georgia regulators plan to allow federal mail carriers to deliver medical cannabis products from dispensaries to their state’s 45,000-plus registered patients in the wake of the Trump administration’s rescheduling move.
Georgia Medical Cannabis Commission (GMCC) members voted during their regular meeting on Aug. 13 to propose a new rule that would allow medical cannabis deliveries through the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) or private mail carriers, such as FedEx, UPS or DHL, to the state’s patients, caregivers and health care institutions. Other private mail carriers approved by the commission would also be allowed.
GMCC Executive Director Andrew Turnage announced the proposed rule as “one of the more exciting changes” among a host of amendments and new language to the state’s medical cannabis laws that the commission is hoping to adopt.
“Everyone knows that Georgia is a very large state. We have a large geography. Everyone knows that patients have had many struggles through this process to get access to the medication that we regulate,” he said. “This will provide the opportunity for our dispensing licensees to be able to ship directly to a patient’s home.”
Turnage said the commission is planning to enable mail deliveries by leveraging an April 2023 order from U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche that “immediately” reclassified FDA-approved cannabis and state-licensed medical cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act.
The GMCC will offer the public an opportunity to provide feedback on its proposed rule changes during a public hearing at 4 p.m. on Sept. 16 at the commission’s office in Atlanta. The deadline for the public to submit written feedback is 5 p.m. Sept. 9.
The commission then plans to consider adopting the proposed rules at its regular meeting on Sept. 30.
Before dispensing products via delivery, Georgia’s medical cannabis licensees would have to develop and submit a plan to the GMCC for approval. In part, the plan would need to identify the shipment method and ensure products can be properly tracked, with certain safety recall protocols in place.
The plan must also include parameters to protect against diversion, such as verifying the patient or caregiver’s identity and ensuring they have an active registry card and their shipping address matches the address listed on their registry card.
According to the proposed delivery rule:
“Where delivery is performed by the U.S. Postal Service, a common carrier, the commission, or a common carrier engaged by the commission, the dispensing licensee shall use certified mail, or a carrier service providing equivalent tracking and proof of delivery, with delivery restricted to, and the signature required of, the patient, caregiver or health care institution employee. No person other than the registered patient, the patient’s caregiver or the listed health care institution employee may sign for or accept such delivery. A dispensing licensee shall record the certified mail receipt, tracking number or other information evidencing proof of delivery in the commission-approved tracking system immediately upon completion of delivery.”
Turnage said this proposal would solve the problem of patients who, in “many areas,” are having to travel two or more hours into a congested metropolitan area to access a dispensary, pointing to the state’s “large geographic divides” that make it near “impossible to get east to west across our great state.”
“One of the greatest added values, in my opinion … is that for the new provisions in the Hope Act where health care facilities, such as long-term care facilities, where patients are permanent residents, and they cannot drive, and they’re not mobile, they can get a card with the Department of Public Health and make the purchase on behalf of the patient,” Turnage said. “This creates a much more secure transaction for that health care facility … without presenting a risk for diversion, without presenting a risk for, frankly, theft, robbery, an attack in the parking lot.”
Under the proposal, a health care institution must agree to accept a dispensary product on behalf of the registered patient.
Passed in 2019, Georgia’s Hope Act authorized the GMCC to oversee the state’s limited-license market four years after the state’s General Assembly passed legislation to allow Georgia patients to possess low-THC oil. It wasn’t until April 2023 that the first dispensaries opened and began selling oral and topical products capped at 5% THC.
In May 2026, Gov. Brian Kemp signed the Putting Georgia Patients First Act, modernizing the state’s medical cannabis program by replacing the THC potency cap with a 12,000-milligram THC possession limit and allowing additional delivery formats, such as vaping raw flower or concentrate-based products.
Since that law went into effect, the state’s medical cannabis patient registry expanded to 45,356 active patients as of Aug. 5, representing a 22% increase in less than a month, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health. The state also has 2,234 active caregivers.
Under the Hope Act, the GMCC can issue additional dispensing licenses when the patient registry reaches 25,000 patients, and for every 10,000-patient increase thereafter.
Reaching the 45,000-patient benchmark this month, the commission plans to allow its six vertically integrated production licensees to now operate up to eight dispensaries each.
Another amendment that the commission proposed for adoption during its Aug. 13 meeting would allow the state’s licensees to sell their finished medical cannabis products in wholesale quantities to other licensees.
“That’s a sales contract to be negotiated between licensees, but that provides an opportunity that doesn’t exist in our current rules,” Turnage said. “And we felt like it was important to align our marketplace along with many other state-regulated marketplaces across the country where that is completely lawful. Again, [it] aligns with DEA provisions for a transfer from registrant to registrant, if they are licensed and registered similarly. And it’s obviously going to provide a pathway for us to track that for anything that moves from one licensee to another. I think that’s the big piece of the puzzle for production licenses.”
The executive director was referring to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) registration process for state-sanctioned medical cannabis businesses under the federal government’s April 2026 rescheduling action that reclassified their products as Schedule III substances.
The GMCC also believes that this loosening of federal restrictions on state-licensed medical cannabis products now allows for deliveries via USPS and other mail carriers.
“We think this provides a great pathway,” Turnage said. “It maintains the same tracking standards that the commission has. And again, it really leverages the authority in that DEA rescheduling order for a state-regulated medical marijuana program. Without these regulations, we don’t have guidelines in place for things like delivery. We think it’s really important to put those guardrails in place and establish standards. I think that’s probably the most notable component.”
