Cherry picked from Todd Rehm's GeorgiaPundit.com email today

The Georgia Craft Brewers Guild argues that proposed changes in a Senate bill to allow them greater latitude in business practices doesn't go far enough.

Georgia is one of many states operating under a three-tiered system that requires producers, distributors, and retailers of alcoholic beverages to be separate companies. Legislation that would relax that regulatory structure for microbrewers stalled in the legislature last year.

"Our biggest account is a bar that's within a mile away of our building, yet our distributor has to pick it up from our place, take it up to Atlanta, and bring it back to the bar," Knowles said.

Limited legislation to allow the presciption by doctors of some medicines derived from marijuana has received the support of the Medical Association of Georgia.

[State Rep. Allen] Peake called the news Monday of support from the Medical Association of Georgia a "game-changer." He said he heard a lot of misgivings from conservative colleagues because they didn't know where the medical community stood on the issue.

"It's tightly restricted, well-regulated, managed by doctors, limited in scope to just a cannabidiol oil that's applied orally," Peake said in an interview. "And so I think that will give comfort to my colleagues and the people of Georgia that this is not going to allow six-year-olds to be smoking a joint on the street corner."

Accompanying Peake Monday at the Capitol was Dr. James Smith, a Gwinnett County physician. He's part of MAG's leadership, and unfortunately, someone who has had a first-hand view of the drug's potential to help. His 7-year-old daughter has developed a seizure disorder called Doose syndrome. And he says all of the treatments his family has tried have devastating side effects. All, except the cannabis oil, also known by the name cannabidiol oil.