by Ty Tagami | Mar 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
Marijuana has been a major topic in the Georgia Senate this legislative session, with three bills passing the chamber just ahead of the deadline Thursday to keep them in play this year.
Two of the measures, Senate Bill 33 and Senate Bill 254, seek to restrict what’s legally available at convenience stores and smoke shops.
The third, Senate Bill 220, would expand and modify access to medical marijuana.
That measure by Sen. Matt Brass, R-Newnan, would increase the allowed legal concentration of cannabidiol in dispensed medical cannabis tenfold, to 50%, while reducing the amount of medical cannabis one can legally possess by the same factor, to two ounces.
The net result is a higher concentration of cannabidiol per dose with the same total limit on possession. Cannabidiol is the non-psychoactive ingredient associated with the relief of pain and other symptoms of disease.
Brass, chairman of the powerful Senate Rules Committee, said he had concerns about the health effects of vaping, which is a popular way of consuming the substance, but he said he was balancing that against patients’ need for immediate relief.
“They may need this medicine to work a little bit faster than one hour or two hours,” he said.
SB 220 would also add cancer and Lupus to conditions for which medical cannabis can be prescribed, and it would strike the current requirement that other allowable conditions, such as multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease, be severe or end stage. And it would allow pharmacies to dispense medical cannabis to parents and the designated caregivers for adults.
All of this was too much for some of Brass’s fellow Republicans.
Sen. Ed Setzler, R-Acworth, said long-term marijuana use has a “massive” impact on health and brain function.
“The density of marijuana we’re talking about here is about getting people stoned,” he said.
Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, the Senate majority whip, called medical marijuana a “gateway drug.”
SB 220 still passed 39-17, with help from Democrats.
Another measure, SB 33, faced minimal resistance. The bill by Sen. Kay Kirkpatrick, R-Marietta, would add certain “intoxicating cannabinoids” to current regulation of the sale of Delta-9.
That substance is legally available at convenience stores and smoke shops when the THC concentration is below 0.3%.
SB 33 would add Delta-8, Delta-10 and Delta 11 to that cap as well as to the mandate for random state inspections of consumable hemp products.
Kirkpatrick, an orthopedic hand surgeon, said her bill would increase consumer safety. She said there are producers in China and elsewhere who may be polluting their product with industrial solvents, heavy metals and other contaminants.
“It’s a consumer protection bill that is not intended to impact processors that are already testing and labeling their products appropriately,” Kirkpatrick said.
The measure passed 50-6.
A third measure, Senate Bill 254, brought chaos to the Senate floor after a major amendment.
The bill originally intended to limit the amount of THC (the ingredient that causes a high) in consumable hemp products, such as gummies, tinctures and drinks.
But an amendment on the Senate floor introduced a ban on the sale of all beverages containing THC.
The measure passed 42-14, with Democrats and Republicans on both sides.
All three bills are now awaiting action by the state House of Representatives, which has until April 4 to act on them during this legislative session.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 7, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Georgia Republicans managed to push three school safety measures through the GOP-led Senate just before the Crossover Day deadline to keep bills alive in this year’s legislative session.
The only controversial measure was Senate Bill 61, which would let prosecutors try teens as adults for threatening violence at school. That would create criminal records that would dog the students into adulthood, unlike sealed records in juvenile court.
Two other measures received broad bipartisan support.
Senate Bill 179, which passed the Senate with just one ‘no’ vote, would impose a 10-day deadline for the sharing of disciplinary records when students in seventh grade on up transfer schools. It would establish a misdemeanor offense for parents who fail to disclose felony convictions against their children and give police seven days to tell schools when a student has been charged with a felony.
The legislation would also create a hotline for anonymously reporting potential violence on school property, and it would mandate annual suicide and violence prevention training for students in public middle and high schools.
Senate Bill 17, which passed unanimously, would require public and private schools to implement mobile panic alert systems and digital school maps integrated with police networks.
It’s called “Ricky and Alyssa’s Law,” after Alyssa Alhadeff, one of the students killed in the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., and assistant football coach Richard Aspinwall, who was among those killed at Apalachee High School in Barrow County last fall.
“Seconds count, minutes count,” said Sen. Jason Anavitarte, R-Dallas, the Senate’s majority caucus chair and the chief sponsor of SB 17. “Nothing will ever change what happened in Parkland or Barrow County. But I think we all agree we can make our systems better, our schools better, and make sure that our schools are as safe as they humanly possibly can be.”
Although Democrats backed the measure, they have been critical of the broader Republican reaction to the Apalachee mass shooting.
In February, Democrats opposed Senate Bill 47, which passed the Senate in a party-line vote. The measure would establish an annual 11-day sales tax break on firearms during the October hunting season. One Democrat remarked that her Republican colleagues were “tone deaf” to push such a measure through while parents in Barrow County were grieving.
Democrats would prefer gun locks, gun safes and other restrictions. Republicans noted that safes would also get a tax break under SB 47.
The measures are now sitting in the state House of Representatives. To become law, the House would have to approve the bills by the scheduled end of the legislative session on April 4.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Legislation that would enhance criminal penalties for students who threaten their school passed the Georgia Senate Thursday.
Senate Bill 61 was pushed by Republicans and passed 33-22 in a party-line vote.
It would allow children aged 13 to 17 to be tried as adults for terroristic threatening. They could also land in superior court for attempting to commit, or for conspiracy to commit, terroristic threatening.
The legislation also would allow prosecutors to move other serious crimes into superior court, including aggravated assault with a gun or armed robbery.
SB 61 is among several measures GOP senators have offered in reaction to the mass shooting last fall at Apalachee High School in Barrow County.
The chief sponsor, Sen. Greg Dolezal, R-Cumming, called it a school safety bill.
But Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, said he saw it as criminalizing kids.
At a committee hearing last week, critics said children’s brains are not fully developed and they sometimes do “dumb things.” If one of those things is phoning a threat to their school, it could land them in superior court, with a lifelong criminal record, they said.
Senate Majority Leader Steve Gooch, R-Dahlonega, told reporters that SB 61 was necessary to confront “heinous” crimes like the mass shooting at Apalachee High. He noted that the legislation gives prosecutors discretion about whether to try children as adults.
“We just have to give the district attorneys the tools in order to protect the citizens of Georgia,” Gooch said.
The bill now moves to the Georgia House of Representatives.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 6, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The Georgia Senate adopted a measure Thursday that would ban drinks containing THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.
Senate Bill 254, which passed 42-14, originally intended to limit the amount of Delta-9 (a form of THC) per serving in gummies, tinctures and drinks. But an amendment on the Senate floor would ban all drinks with THC.
Sen. Bill Cowsert, R-Athens, sponsored the bill out of concern about the impairing effect of THC on driving and other activities.
“We are putting loaded guns in people’s hands in the form of a can or a gummy,” he said, “and we need to protect them.”
His bill originally limited the amount of Delta-9 to 10 milligrams per consumable, which, he noted, was roughly equivalent to four servings of alcohol.
SB 254 also limited the amount of Delta-9 in tincture and drinks, until Sen. Randy Robertson, R-Cataula, upped the ante with his amendment, saying Georgia was on a “bullet train” with marijuana consumption.
Robertson, the Senate majority whip, introduced his amendment to ban all beverages containing THC.
The amendment barely passed, 29-27, with several Republicans voting against it. The Senate chamber filled with chatter at the unexpected new trajectory for the bill. A maneuver to reconsider the motion failed, and then the Senate passed the amended bill with a large bipartisan majority.
Afterward, Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones, II, D-Augusta, said he was stunned by what had just occurred and by the impact on companies that make beverages containing THC should SB 254 become law.
“It basically destroys a whole industry,” Jones said.
The legislation now moves to the Georgia House of Representatives.
by Ty Tagami | Mar 4, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
The Georgia Senate adopted legislation Tuesday that would make it a felony to distribute computer-generated obscenity that appears to depict a child, even one that isn’t real.
Senate Bill 9, which passed 46-9, would also enhance the criminal penalties for offenses that involve the use of artificial intelligence.
The penalty for depicting a child would be one to 15 years in prison. It wouldn’t have to be a child “who actually exists.”
Sen. John Albers, R-Roswell, said the enhanced sentencing is necessary because artificial intelligence has become such a powerful tool.
“It’s not just about punishment,” he said. “It’s about deterrence.”
There was discussion about simulated versus actual obscene acts, and Albers said prosecutors would have discretion to use the enhanced sentencing in such cases.
