We all know about Uruguay, right? First country to legalize recreational cannabis. We also all know about Canada, and the growing number of US states that allow legal smoking. Some of us are even aware that Mexico too is a recently legalized country. But who knew about Georgia?

But prosecutors and police say it won’t change how they handle suspected marijuana cases.

Marijuana often demonstrates the ability to win over even the most conservative of individuals. That said, winning over the hearts and minds of America’s vast regions isn’t complete until cannabis endears itself to the nation’s most conservative citizens and lawmakers in the southeast. 

Recent activity indicates that it may just be happening.

Commonly known as the Deep South, the region is the Bible Belt’s shiny, conservative buckle. It’s where conservative viewpoints almost always win out. There, progressive agendas like cannabis reform often face an uphill battle that rivals that of Sisyphus. 

Hemp farmers and sellers would need a license to possess the non-psychoactive cousin of marijuana under legislation that passed the General Assembly on Monday.

House Bill 847 requires anyone cultivating, transporting or selling hemp to hold a license just like for other agricultural products. Anyone caught with hemp who does not have a proper license would face the same penalties as for marijuana possession in Georgia.

The bill, sponsored by Rep. John Corbett, R-Lake Park, follows passage last year of a measure that legalized the growing, processing and transport of hemp. It cleared the state Senate on Monday by a 34-13 vote with several Democratic lawmakers voting against it.

The hemp measure now heads to Gov. Brian Kemp’s desk for his signature.

Whether or not farmers in Georgia would be able to grow the crop this year was in doubt until the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved the state’s hemp plan this month.  This is according to a report by local news outlet AJC.com, which states that the federal government had put Georgia’s plan on hold late last year but gave it the go-ahead when state legislators appropriated $200,000 to regulate the program in this year’s budget and proposed additional funding next fiscal year.

Quarantine caused by the global outbreak of COVID-19 is forcing people across the world to find ways to entertain themselves.

In Michigan, people are lighting up.

According to a Twitter survey conducted by the health blog bodynutrition.org, Michigan residents are smoking marijuana more than any other state during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Analysts used trends software with direct access to geotagged twitter data to arrive at the conclusion.

Millions of Americans now have access to medical marijuana. But millions more do not, and attempts to change that have hit a brick wall in some states. Medical marijuana is inaccessible to 34 percent of the states in the country and remains illegal on a federal level.

This fact is a fly in the face of national sentiment. Based on the most recent nationwide survey by Gallup, 66 percent of Americans favor legalizing marijuana.

Barely a year after the legalization of hemp by the federal government with the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, state lawmakers in Georgia are pushing to re-criminalize possession of small amounts of the plant. Under a bill approved on Tuesday by the Georgia House of Representatives’ Agriculture and Consumer Affairs Committee, anyone possessing “green leafy” hemp or transporting hemp plants would be required to carry paperwork proving they are working for a licensed hemp business.

For decades, the University of Georgia has tested new varieties of cash crops and plants at a farm near Athens. This year, it added a new crop.

"This is industrial hemp," said Dr. Timothy Coolong, a horticulturalist who had been specializing in onions before he became Georgia’s trailblazer in the production of hemp. 

"I’m actually pretty pleased" with the production, he said, surveying the leafy rows of hemp.

Dr. Coolong nursed this field of hemp, plus others that spanned the state.  It’s a crop that was outlawed until earlier this year.  Lawmakers had been wary of hemp because it looks and smells identical to marijuana.

But it has an important distinction: Hemp has virtually none of the THC that makes marijuana a popular illegal recreational drug.

Aides to Kemp, Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and House Speaker David Ralston haven’t said why there’s no members yet for the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission. But until they do, the expansion is effectively sidelined.