Court of appeals set to review Georgia's medical marijuana bid process

ATLANTA - In Adel Georgia, at the Trulieve medical marijuana plant it looked like - after two years - there was finally progress in the marijuana medicine front in Georgia.

Two hours to the east, in Glenville, state Rep. Bill Werkheiser points to another medical cannabis facility under construction. Werkheiser was one of those smiling faces during Botanical Sciences’ ribbon cutting. 

"I can tell you Botanical Sciences could drop seed tomorrow literally and have oil in 110 days," said Werkheiser.

After two years of bids, awards, protests, and laws suits the state medical marijuana commission finally issued licenses to Trulieve and Botanical Sciences to grow medical cannabis in Georgia.  

However, while some were cutting ribbons, the legal wrangling was heating up. The Georgia Court of Appeals recently gave the go-ahead to losing medical marijuana bidders to challenge who was selected to grow medical marijuana and how they were picked.

Attorneys Jake Evans, in Atlanta, and Kristen Goodman, in Savannah, represent a total of five medical marijuana companies challenging the license process. Kristen Goodman represents some of those companies. 

"The members of the Medical Cannabis Commission knew who the owners were of these companies, who the companies were affiliated with, and they scored in an arbitrary and frankly sometimes nonsensical way," said Goodman.

"Georgians have to know there was no corruption, that none of these licenses was bought," added Evans.  

Their clients and others lost legal battles to overturn the bid selection. But both attorneys convinced the court of appeals that the legal process for losing bidders was fatally flawed, and they were denied a right to a fair appeal.

"It means we’re going to have our day in court, it means we’re going hopefully get a fair shake," said Evans.

"Our point is to hold accountable the legislators and the evaluators that allowed this to happen," Goodman said.

For two years, the FOX 5 I-Team has investigated the awarding of medical marijuana licenses in Georgia. Reports exposed controversial corporate backgrounds involving four of the winning bidders.

Trulieve CEO Kim River’s husband JT Burnette is currently in federal prison on public corruption charges. Trulieve said Burnette had nothing to do with their company. 

Atlanta entrepreneur Paul Judge's company is TheraTrue. Weeks after he was selected for one of the lucrative licenses, Judge contributed $50,000 to Gov. Brian Kemp's leadership committee. 

The FOX 5 I-Team also reported how thousands of pages of winning bids, by law, were redacted and kept secret from losing bidders, the public, and the media. 

The scoring of those winning bids - by politically appointed commissioners - was also kept secret. 

Kept secret from the public, the media, and even legislators.

"Do we need to step in and change this meltdown to getting this thing done," state Rep. Alan Powell once asked.

Attempts by Rep. Powell and other legislators to fix what many saw as a selection process that favored the politically connected failed. 

So, while two companies forge ahead, the Georgia Court of Appeals will now weigh in on whether the legal procedure for four other lucrative licenses was done right. 

"With this type of medical cannabis, we’ve got to make sure that there is an integrity in the product, getting the product to the public," Evans said.

The court of appeals could take months before a ruling is issued, which means why companies await a final outcome, two companies will be well under way in their process to produce medical marijuana for some estimated 25,000 Georgia patients.