HB 342: Crimes and offenses; access to medical cannabis; repeal certain advertising restrictions on licensees

Georgia law currently bars medical cannabis licensees (growers, processors, and dispensaries) from advertising or marketing low THC oil products to patients or the public, only allowing them to share information directly with physicians. This bill rewrites O.C.G.A. § 16-12-215 to remove that ban. Under the substitute, licensees would be allowed to advertise and market their products to registered patients and the general public. But that advertising would not be a free-for-all: the bill directs the commission that regulates the medical cannabis program to write rules ensuring ads do not include medical claims unsupported by reliable scientific evidence and are not otherwise harmful to the public. The bill leaves in place existing distance rules keeping licensees away from schools, early childhood programs, and houses of worship. It repeals conflicting laws and does not state a delayed effective date beyond the standard process.

• Repeals the current ban on licensees advertising or marketing low THC oil and products to registered patients and the public.
• Allows licensees to advertise and market directly to patients and the public, not just to physicians as under current law.
• Requires the state commission to write rules and regulations governing this advertising and marketing.
• Directs those new rules to prohibit medical claims unsupported by reliable scientific evidence.
• Directs those new rules to prohibit advertising that is otherwise harmful to the public.
• Leaves unchanged the existing distance limits keeping licensees away from schools, early care programs, and churches or other places of worship.

Licensed medical cannabis cultivators, processors, and dispensaries in Georgia; registered medical cannabis patients who would now see direct advertising; the state commission or agency tasked with writing new advertising rules; and physicians, who previously were the only permitted audience for product information.

Patients and the public could start seeing direct advertising and marketing for low THC oil products for the first time, instead of licensees being limited to informing physicians. The actual content limits on that advertising would depend on rules the commission has not yet written.

• Section 1 revises O.C.G.A. § 16-12-215(b) to remove language stating licensees shall not advertise or market to patients or the public.
• Section 1 replaces the prior exception, which let licensees give product information only to physicians, with broader permission to advertise to patients and the public.
• New paragraph (b)(2) requires the commission to promulgate rules governing licensee advertising and marketing of low THC oil or products.
• Those rules must ensure marketing does not include medical claims unsupported by reliable scientific evidence and is not otherwise harmful to the public.
• Subsection (a), which sets 3,000-foot and 1,000-foot buffers between licensees and schools, early care programs, and houses of worship, remains unchanged.
• Section 2 repeals all laws and parts of laws in conflict with the Act.

1. 2025-04-04House Withdrawn, Recommitted (House)
2. 2025-03-04House Committee Favorably Reported By Substitute (House)
3. 2025-02-12House Second Readers (House)
4. 2025-02-11House First Readers (House)
5. 2025-02-10House Hopper (House)

• Mitchell Horner (R, HD-3)Primary sponsor
• Jason Ridley (R, HD-6)
• Jordan Ridley (R, HD-22)
• Derrick McCollum (R, HD-30)
• Eric Bell (D, HD-75)

• medical cannabis
• low THC oil
• cannabis advertising
• healthcare regulation
• Georgia licensing rules