by Ty Tagami | Mar 3, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Georgia lawmakers declined to tighten regulations for clinics that administer Ketamine and other drugs used for psychedelic therapy, but the debate is not over yet.
The 73-88 vote against House Bill 717 on the House floor Tuesday was a rejection of a request by the Georgia Composite Medical Board to require that only specially trained physicians be allowed to have majority ownership of such clinics.
“Ketamine is a very, very dangerous drug. It is FDA-approved only to use as an anesthetic,” said Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, who introduced the bill.
In addition to ensuring safe use of Ketamine, said Cooper, a licensed nurse, her bill would prepare Georgia for the future, “because there are more psychedelic drugs coming that are under study now that are even more dangerous. How about Ecstasy? Or magic mushrooms?”
Two medical doctors who serve in the House also backed the measure.
Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, an anesthesiologist who said she has administered Ketamine, said the legislation was needed to increase safety.
So did Rep. Mark Newton, R-Augusta, an emergency physician.
“If your hip’s out of joint, if your child has a bad facial laceration, this is a great medicine,” he said, adding that he and Au were probably the only two representatives in the House “who’ve seen people stop breathing because of this medicine … and know how serious a drug this is.”
Critics saw HB 717 as an attempt by doctors to corner the market.
Rep. Lauren McDonald III, R-Cumming, said he supports regulating these clinics. “But House Bill 717 simply does not regulate clinics. It restructures ownership and clinical authority in a way that prioritizes title over training and control over competency,” he said, adding that the legislation would reduce growth in the sector and public access to such clinics.
Cooper could offer nothing when another lawmaker asked if she had data showing majority physician ownership was safer.
After the measure failed, a lawmaker motioned to reconsider, and Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, announced another vote on HB 717 would occur when the House meets again Wednesday.
In addition to the physician ownership mandate, the measure would require the Georgia Composite Medical Board to establish rules and regulations for safe clinic operations.
by Ty Tagami | Jan 30, 2026 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Some lawmakers have been working under Georgia’s Gold Dome long enough to remember when the place reeked of cigarettes.
Although no one openly smokes there today, lawmakers seem to have an abiding aversion to legislation to curb tobacco use, specifically a tax increase.
Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, took his oath of office in 1997. The white-haired pharmacist has personal reasons to abhor cigarettes, and he has been introducing legislation against tobacco since his hair was black.
But some mysterious force has always undermined his efforts.
He and a fellow Republican who chairs the House Public and Community Health committee have been tilting at a tobacco windmill for most of their legislative careers, and they have little to show for it.
After numerous hours invested last spring and summer in a study committee that underscored the dangers of tobacco use, they feel defeated.
“I don’t know why anything related to tobacco has trouble getting through,” said Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, the public health committee chairwoman who also led the smoking study committee.
It is not as if the risks of smoking are a secret.
The report written by their five-member study committee makes that plain. It starts off by noting that the resolution passed by the full House to establish the committee had recognized that smoking “harms every organ” in the body.
The report then summarized facts gathered during three hearings: cigarette smoke can produce more than 7,000 chemicals, including ammonia, formaldehyde, lead, mercury and uranium-235. It can cause, among other things, cancer, heart and lung disease, type 2 diabetes, eye diseases, and rheumatoid arthritis.
Both Stephens and Cooper have personal motivations, as well.
Stephens’ sister-in-law died last summer, due, he said, to the effects of smoking. For years, she had been confined at home, tethered to an oxygen bottle. He said his father smoked as a teen and got lung concern later in life, which cost $5,000 a month to treat.
Cooper’s half-sister died in her 30s, and the lawmaker always suspected it was due to secondhand smoke exposure from her chain-smoking stepmother.
As a licensed nurse, Cooper said she had witnessed the damage. “I’ve seen lungs blackened over years of smoking,” she said.
Both also spoke of the resulting financial burden for taxpayers.
“You’re going to get sick, usually when you’re older and on Medicare or Medicaid,” Stephens said, “so then the public bears the cost.”
Yet nothing concrete has come of the hours they spent on their study committee. The discussion during the hearings suggested a clear direction: legislation to raise the tax on cigarettes.
Georgia’s cigarette excise tax has not changed since 2003. At 37 cents a pack, it is the second lowest in the nation, behind only Missouri. By comparison, New York charges $5.35 per pack, and Indianna increased its tax by $2 a pack in 2024, lifting it to $2.99.
Stephens was not surprised to learn that the American Lung Association had yet again given Georgia a failing grade. This week, the organization released its 24th annual “State of Tobacco Control” report.
Georgia got an “F” in all five categories related to curbing tobacco use. The association recommended that lawmakers increase the state’s cigarette tax by at least $1.50 per pack. It said studies show that every 10% increase in the price of cigarettes reduces consumption by about 4% among adults and about 7% among youth.
The association said tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and disease nationally and claims 11,690 Georgia lives each year.
Rep. Michelle Au, D-Johns Creek, was not surprised by the failing grades.
“We’ve been five Fs for a long time,” said Au, a medical doctor and one of two Democrats on Cooper’s study committee.
Dr. Au observed something unusual for a study committee report. “It is denuded of policy recommendations,” she said. “We were told in the process that we could not include policy recommendations.”
She said she asked House Speaker Jon Burns, R-Newington, who had empaneled the study committee, why it was given such instructions.
“And he said (it was) because there were such strong feelings on either side of the issue that he felt that the best approach would be to just present the facts,” Au said. “Of course, I did notice that basically every other study committee does present policy recommendations.”
Indeed, one of the three study committee meetings focused on policy recommendations, she said. “So, it is a conspicuous omission.”
A spokeswoman for Burns’ office said he had instructed the committee to present “the entirety” of the data and testimony gathered by the committee “so that the General Assembly’s future legislative initiatives could be informed and guided by the facts.”
Republicans control both the state Senate and House, so only bills promoted by Republicans tend to become law.
But those two GOP representatives who have been tilting at tobacco for years said they were moving on to other issues this year.
Stephens, who chairs the House Economic Development and Tourism Committee, is instead focusing on bread-and-butter issues for the bustling region he represents. His area is booming due to increased shipping traffic at its ports and the new Hyundai Metaplant, not to mention the visitors flocking to the coast and Georgia’s charming and oldest city, Savannah.
He said he would put his limited time this year into promoting tourism and managing growth “rather than introduce another bill that that won’t go anywhere.”
And Cooper is concerned about recreational use of the drug Kratom and the anesthetic ketamine.
The longtime lawmaker, sworn in the same year as Stephens, has watched a succession of lawmakers parade through the Capitol, including several House speakers. She remembers when smoke wafted through the air and left an awful smell on the faded blue curtains. She also has not forgotten the spittoons and carpet stains.
All that may have faded away, but the resistance to taxing tobacco has endured, Cooper said.
“There just doesn’t seem to be an appetite from members of the legislature for that to move,” she said. “It is the mystery of the century. I would like to know before I die, if we ever find out, what’s causing the resistance to it. They slip through taxes on other stuff.”
by Ty Tagami | Aug 21, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Smoking kills, but many still do it, and a small group of Georgia lawmakers want to help people kick the habit and discourage others from starting.
A big challenge for a bipartisan panel in the state House of Representatives: their main proposal is a tax increase, and tax increases are not popular in an election year. Their proposed legislation would come up for a vote in 2026, observed the chairwoman, Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, at the last of three hearings for the House study committee on smoking and vaping Thursday.
Committee members are considering other ideas, too, such as requiring ingredient disclosures on the packaging of vaping products and banning flavors. They also discussed increasing the $10 licensing fee for vape shops to suppress their numbers. (In Georgia, it costs $10 for a tobacco sales licensing fee and another $10 to sell tobacco vape products.)
“There are more vape shops now in Georgia than Chick-fil-A and Starbucks combined,” said Dr. Daniel Miller, a thoracic surgeon at the Medical College of Georgia who offered a buffet of statistics at Thursday’s hearing. “They pop up anywhere for $10. It’s incredible how they’ve exploded. It’s because it doesn’t cost anything.”
Miller said vaping products contain 25 times more nicotine than cigarettes, making them highly addictive for children.
It is illegal to sell tobacco products to children, but observers complained about lax enforcement. One in five middle school students and one in four high school students vape, Miller said, adding that one in three college students do, as well.
Rep. Ron Stephens, R-Savannah, said he floated a sales tax increase to the chairman and members of the House Ways & Means Committee, which holds jurisdiction over taxes.
He also disclosed at the hearing that his wife’s sister, a smoker since the 1970s, had died Wednesday.
“It touches a lot of families,” said Stephens, a long-time advocate for increased tobacco taxes.
Back in June, as the committee was getting underway, Stephens said the likelihood of federal budget cuts might decrease resistance to higher taxes on products like tobacco.
Georgia has one of the lowest cigarette taxes in the nation, the committee heard in June.
At 37 cents a pack, it is well below the national average of $1.97. Only Missouri, at 17 cents, charges less.
“Sometimes the pocketbook and the squeeze changes minds,” Stephens said in an interview that month, adding that the tax revenue could offset health-care costs that would be borne by Georgians in the event of federal cuts, which subsequently became a reality when President Donald Trump signed his “Big Beautiful Bill” into law in July.
“If you smoke long enough and hard enough,” Stephens said, “you’re going to get sick, and somebody’s got to pay for it.”
By then, federal actions were already having an impact, something anti-smoking advocates noted Thursday, saying Georgia should restore $2.1 million to the Tobacco Use Prevention Program.
The Georgia Department of Public Health shuttered the program in May due to federal cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention though the state agency said “core” tobacco and vaping prevention and cessation programs were still operating.
by Ty Tagami | Jul 18, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — Tobacco companies are using social media influencers, bright packaging and fruity flavors to lure new customers to vaping, and state lawmakers heard Thursday that they appear to be targeting teenagers.
Flavors like mango, cucumber and creme brulee sound delectable and contribute to widespread use, along with easy access from older siblings and third-party vendors, said Suhaas Reddy Bonkur, a Georgia Tech student.
“It’s super easy for them and very convenient to just take a hit, maybe it’s as simple as grabbing a snack after school,” said the fourth-year biomedical student, who is a member of the American Heart Association’s state advocacy committee. “And this easy access normalizes its behavior and fuels the addiction.”
A medical expert testified about the cornucopia of health risks for young people who vape — risks that science can “extrapolate” from cigarette use.
“They include things like various respiratory illnesses and pneumonias, worsening asthma as well as the risk of developing asthma,” said Dr. Mary Ellen Fain of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. “Lots of behavioral problems like ADHD, antisocial behavior, middle ear infections that can cause hearing impairment.”
Thursday’s hearing of the House Study Committee on the Costs and Effects of Smoking was the second in a series that started last month. The first hearing focused on smoking and Georgia’s exceedingly low cigarette tax. At 37 cents a pack, it is well below the national average of $1.97. Only Missouri, at 17 cents, charges less.
Testimony Thursday revealed a similar tax policy for vaping. Georgia and 32 other states plus Washington, D.C., have a vape tax policy, said Danny Kanso, an analyst with the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute.
“Among those 33 states, we are at the very bottom,” said Kanso, who said Georgia taxes the product at 5 cents per milliliter while the national average is 82 cents.
No one from the industry spoke this time or at last month’s hearing.
Advocates at both hearings proposed raising the tax rate on tobacco products. They also advised more sales restrictions and cessation programs.
Bonkur, the Tech student, lamented the recent defunding of Georgia’s Tobacco Use Prevention Program, a victim of federal cuts.
The state health department said last month that core tobacco and vaping prevention and cessation programs were still operating, but Bonkur said it was a loss of “instrumental” prevention work, adding that the state should invest more into it.
These temporary study committees take deep dives on complicated topics, then advise the broader General Assembly. No specific tobacco legislation has emerged so far, but this committee will meet one more time to discuss concrete proposals ahead of next year’s legislative session.
The chairwoman, Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, who also leads the House’s standing Public and Community Health Committee, lamented that Congress omitted menthol when it banned cigarette flavors in 2009, suggesting a direction she might want to take.
Rep. Lee Hawkins, R-Gainesville, chairman of the House Health Committee, another key lawmaker on the topic, said he would like to see more transparency requirements for vape product packaging.
“I would like to include in there that the ingredients of these vaping products must be disclosed,” said Hawkins, a dentist who has also been leading a summer study committee on cancer care access. “Because you’re putting all kinds of things in these vaping products, and I think the public and the user should know.”
by Ty Tagami | Mar 26, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Parents of children who are questioning their gender would still have access in Georgia to medicine that prevents the onset of puberty under a new version of state legislation that had sought to ban all access.
The version of Senate Bill 30 that passed the Georgia Senate in early March would have threatened the medical licenses of doctors and hospitals administering puberty blockers.
Sen. Ben Watson, R-Savannah, the bill’s chief sponsor, said the prohibition was needed because of long-term repercussions, such as bone density loss. He pointed to some European countries that have banned access.
But a fellow Republican in the House of Representatives said Wednesday that the Senate’s bill went too far, and she reined it in with what she called a compromise. Rep. Sharon Cooper, R-Marietta, chairs the House Public and Community Health Committee, where the bill was sent by House leadership. Her amendment preserves access to puberty blockers but makes them harder to obtain.
The committee hearing featured medical specialists who testified for and against a ban, with one pediatric endocrinologist saying that delaying puberty is harmful and another dismissing the consequences of puberty blockers.
“Physiologically these bodies are male, and they are female,” said Dr. Quentin Van Meter, who testified to the committee via Watson’s phone. “There’s nothing that we can do that can change that at any cellular level and so puberty blockers are inappropriate for the use in these kids before the age of consent,” he said.
Delaying puberty reduces bone density and can cause problems with “mental capabilities,” he said without elaborating.
Dr. Shirley Hao said she was speaking for the Georgia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and that the organization opposes banning puberty blockers.
“Treatment of gender dysphoria and gender affirming care is supported by nearly every major medical and mental health organization in the United States,” she said, “including the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Endocrine Society, just to name a few.”
Hao said studies have shown that bone density can be addressed by the later use of hormone therapy and by increased vitamin D intake, calcium supplementation and physical activity.
Several who spoke at the hearing noted a disconnect between Georgia Republicans’ goal of safeguarding parental rights and how Watson and other proponents of SB 30 want to deny those rights when it comes to puberty blockers.
Cooper appeared to agree with the critique.
“I think a lot of us are just having some trouble about that sort of dictatorial writ,” she said, before outlining how her amendments would alter SB 30 by allowing continued access to puberty blockers but making them “really hard to get.”
Parents would have to get two behavioral health specialists — either two psychiatrists, or a psychiatrist and a psychologist — to determine that their child has gender dysphoria. Then they would have to see a board-certified pediatric endocrinologist.
These sorts of specialists are rare, Cooper noted.
“A parent is going to have to really want and understand and believe their child has this dysphoria because a lot of them are probably going to have to drive 100 or 150 miles to get to that kind of doctor,” she said.
Cooper’s amendment didn’t placate Democrats. All eight Democrats present voted against the bill, after their caucus vice chair, Rep. Spencer Frye from Athens, railed against SB 30 as a “disgusting” waste of time.
But the committee passed the bill with the support of eight Republicans.
The House Rules Committee will now decide whether to put it to a vote of the full House. If it were to pass there, the Senate would have to agree to Wednesday’s amendments for it to become law.
