In what may seem like a very ironic move, a former anti-marijuana congressman who was also a top Trump health official, has joined a cannabis company board.
Documents obtained by Marijuana Moment show that former head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Tom Price, is serving as a member of the board of directors for a medical marijuana business in Georgia.
Tom Price served as HHS secretary under President Donald Trump for seven months before resigning.
He is listed as a board member of Botanical Sciences, LLC, one of six cannabis businesses to win licenses last month under Georgia’s limited medical cannabis program.
The former congressman had repeatedly voted against marijuana reform. He voted six times against appropriations bill amendments to simply shield state medical marijuana programs from federal interference by the Department of Justice.
He had also opposed appropriations measures to allow U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs doctors to recommend medical cannabis for their military veteran patients.
“As a dad of medical cannabis patient, a parent that spent seven years at the Georgia Capitol lobbying to try to pass a medical cannabis program, I can only start to express my disappointment when I found out that Tom Price was on the board of directors of Botanical Sciences, one of the companies that received a class 1 license to cultivate and distribute cannabis here in Georgia,” Sebastien Cotte, co-founder and board member of Georgia’s Hope, told Marijuana Moment.
Price’s wife, Betty, is a former Georgia state representative who regularly opposed modest reforms as well.
“Tom Price at the federal level and his wife Betty Price at the state level have been strong opponents of cannabis for years,” Cotte said. “They did all they could to not only destroy our grassroots efforts in Georgia but they also tried to put every medical cannabis program in the country in jeopardy.”
