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Cannabis field growing for legal recreational use in Washington State.
With three calendar weeks left in this year’s legislative session, both chambers passed bills dealing with controlled substances.
Before the Senate got started Thursday, senators were given a serving of Bananas Foster — not the famous dessert that originated in New Orleans, but rather a program developed by the owners and founders of the Savannah Bananas baseball team.
“Bananas Foster was born in 2023 when they hired me to come in and build the organization to create the mission, which is to celebrate the foster care community while educating and inspiring others to get involved,” said Bananas Foster director Jolie Chabala. “So, since 2023, we have celebrated over 200 foster families that are making a difference across the United States, and we have also inspired over 500 people to learn more about becoming a licensed foster family.”
It was then on to the seven bills on the docket.
House Bill 162 would allow first-time offenders to have their convictions sealed for certain nonviolent crimes and keep it off their records if they fulfill the terms of their sentencing.
“Currently you can petition the court to have them seal your record,” Sen. Bill Cowsert (R-Athens) said. “We used to call it expungement; now they call it restriction of your record while you’re in that type of program. But ordinarily it is not sealed or restricted until after you have completed your probationary sentence. This allows people to keep these proceedings confidential. They’re meant for non-serious crimes, and it’s to allow a person a second chance for a first offense.”
It passed unanimously.
HB 219 would allow nurses, social workers, and marriage and family therapists to take part in a program that helps medical professionals who lose their licenses because of a substance abuse problem to reacquire them and reenter the healthcare field.
“We want to extend this to our nurses and make sure that we have an opportunity for them to continue their careers if they’ve made a mistake one time,” Sen. Chuck Hufstetler (R-Rome) said. “And it really encourages people not to hide their problems, but to bring them forward because they know there’s a pathway other than just losing their license.”
The bill passed 46 to 1.
But while most of the bills were passed without any real opposition, HB 1199 didn’t enjoy that same unity.
The bill is a yearly tax law adjustment that conforms the state code with changes in federal tax laws, but Republicans and committee changed a provision that reduced the state’s match of federal tax credits for low-income housing by 50%.
“The State of Georgia right now matches the federal money 100%,” Hufstetler said. “We’re just about the only state that does that. Some states match it 50%. Some states don’t match it at all. And we had a study done in the past that showed that we really weren’t getting any benefit from the 100% match. That didn’t seem to matter in the number of units that were built.”
Democrats didn’t like the change, saying that the funds being cut would affect projects already in progress, as well as worsen the lack of affordable housing already impacting the state.
“This bill, in fact, does not save the state money,” Sen. Josh McLaurin (D-Sandy Springs) said. “All it does is put a leading state agency on this issue into a cash crunch that it has to go into an emergency posture to solve.”
Despite the objections, the bill passed along party lines 31 to 18.
In the House, members took up three Senate bills and two resolutions.
Senate Bill 220 makes changes to the state’s medical cannabis program, including renaming it “medical cannabis” from “low-THC oil.” The bill also adds an inhalation option to the medication, bans public use, and changes restrictions around dosing to milligrams instead of percent of THC. It also adds some new medical conditions like lupus to the program’s list. The state first passed legislation to create the program in 2015.
“This isn’t about legalizing recreational marijuana, even though the federal government has now moved it from a Schedule I to a Schedule III at the bottom of the hill,” Rep. Alan Powell (R-Hartwell) said. “This is about helping people. And I hear questions when people talk about adding these illnesses onto this list. Let me tell you something, that’s just the product and the nature of how this goes. If you have someone who has cancer, that has ALS — folks, get a life about this stuff. When people are hurting, they need relief.”
While SB 220 received a mostly positive reception on the House floor, a Republican representative said some lawmakers were not as kind.
“Earlier this week, I received an email threatening me that if I voted yes on this bill, I would be dinged on a legislative scorecard,” Rep. Beth Camp (R-Concord) said. “And as I read that email, frankly, it made me quite mad. And a performance appraisal from a lobbying organization that did not elect me, attempting to tell me how to legislate, is not how I operate. My constituents sent me here to critically think, to evaluate the facts, and make the best decisions possible for the people I represent.”
It passed 138 to 21 and now heads back to the Senate because of changes made in the House committee.
House Resolution 145 urges the departments of Education and Public Health to collaborate and prioritize hearing and vision screenings for school children.
“This is a urging resolution to set up an opportunity for us to do a better job of screening those kids, catching those kids and helping them to be able to see the board, hear the teacher, rather than have a gap in time for that to happen and we know that improves literacy,” Rep. Chris Erwin (R-Homer) said.
HR 1049 designates the last Wednesday of October each year as Fentanyl and Opioid Awareness Day.
Both resolutions were adopted unanimously.
Lawmakers will be back Monday for Day 32, which is also the fifth anniversary of the Atlanta spa shootings. Some lawmakers will hold a memorial at the state Capitol.
GPB’s Lawmakers returns for Day 32 on Monday, Mar. 16 at 7 p.m. on GPB TV.
Sarah Kallis is the Politics Reporter at GPB. She is also the capitol correspondent for GPB’s Lawmakers.
Tristan Smith is an award-winning television news producer with over thirty years of experience, covering everything from war zones to human interest stories.
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