Capitol Recap: DEA moves to block sale of medical marijuana in Georgia pharmacies

Georgia law allows eligible patients to buy cannabis oil with up to 5% THC, far below the level of the compound found in marijuana illegally purchased off the street.

The DEA said it considers products with a THC content above 0.3% to be marijuana, which is a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act. Schedule I drugs are those with the highest risk of abuse that are considered to have no safe medical use.

Georgia has allowed eligible patients to use low-THC medical cannabis since 2015, but until recently there was no legal way for them to legally obtain the drug in the state.

The drug is available to Georgians with approval from a physician to treat severe illnesses including seizures, terminal cancers, Parkinson’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Licenses to dispense the low-THC oil have been issued to 23 Georgia independent pharmacies, according to the Board of Pharmacy. There have been no plans for the product to be sold by national drugstore chains such as CVS and Walgreens.

The Georgia Pharmacy Association said in a letter that the DEA warning “puts Georgia’s pharmacies in a difficult position.”

Mahlon Davidson, the interim CEO of the Georgia Pharmacy Association, said each independent pharmacy will make its own decision on how to proceed, but he seemed to think pharmacists are taking the warning seriously.

“Let’s say you are an independent pharmacist and you own a pharmacy and you employ an average of 10 people and you’ve got a very profitable pharmacy,” Davidson said. “If the DEA sent you that letter, you look at that product behind you and go, ‘You know, if I keep this on my shelf and the DEA decides to not only flex their muscles but exercise their power, I am putting at risk the families of 10 other people plus my own.’ "

Top Georgia jurists say raises needed to recruit, retain legal talent

It’s the judgment of some of the state’s leading jurists that big pay raises are needed to ensure top legal talent joins them on the bench.

The judges say the salaries of members of the state’s Supreme Court, Court of Appeals and superior courts often can’t compete with what big law firms pay, limiting the pool of qualified applicants when a position opens.

It’s also a problem when the state is trying to hold on to the judges it has.

“Retention has become a serious problem,” Supreme Court Presiding Judge Nels S.D. Peterson recently told members of state’s House and Senate budget committees. “I can list anecdote after anecdote of judges who have left the bench because they can’t afford to serve anymore.

“In my court, the Supreme Court, in just the last three years, we have seen three of our justices in a position where they needed to leave to be able to afford college for their kids.”

Joining Peterson in testifying before the committees was state Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Boggs and Justice Charlie Bethel.

They were pushing a plan that would raise the base pay of Supreme Court justices from $186,112 a year to $223,400. Court of Appeals justices could see their salaries increase from $184,990 to $212,230, and superior court judges could receive a bump from $141,970 to $201,060.

The figures for superior court judges come with a big asterisk.

Those amounts reflect the state’s contribution to their annual earnings, but counties can supplement those salaries.

Some of those counties can be generous. The Judicial Council reports that 69 superior court judges currently earn more than $201,060, more than what state Supreme Court justices receive and exceeding the new base rate that is being proposed. Judges in such a position would be able to opt out under the plan.

A cap of 10% would be applied to “locality pay” under the proposal Boggs, Bethel and Peterson were backing. That could boost some superior court judges’ salaries to over $220,000 a year.

That sounds like big money if you don’t wear a robe to work.

But Peterson pointed out that pay is surging in the legal field.

He said first-year associates at big Atlanta law firms receive $215,000. That’s for somebody fresh out of law school, not necessarily a candidate ready to become a judge.

Here’s another way to compare the numbers:

Under the plan, those rankings would be 15th for the Supreme Court, 12th for the Appeals Court and 14th for superior courts.

The problem isn’t limited to judges, Boggs said. Prosecutors also need help.

“We have significant workforce development problems in the judicial branch,” Boggs said. “We have (judicial) circuits that can’t hire assistant DAs.”

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Republicans to renew push for school voucher legislation

Republicans will make another push to use public dollars to pay for private education during the upcoming legislative session, and to do it, they will turn up the pressure on other Republicans.

Senate Bill 233 fell short by just six votes this spring after 16 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.

The bill would provide state payments for private K-12 education to the parents of students without special needs or medical conditions that require accommodations.

SB 233 would give vouchers of $6,500 a year to the families of students who leave a low-performing public school. Parents could use the money to enroll their children in a private school or to cover costs associated with home-schooling.

Supporters of the measure say every child is entitled to a tailored education — with the help of taxpayers — even if it’s not at the public school serving their neighborhood. They say many public schools have not kept up with changes in society and are incapable of preparing enough children for success.

Opponents think SB 233 could divert tens of millions of dollars away from public schools each year. Pointing out that $6,500 would cover only a portion of the cost of tuition at many private schools, they say the bill would most likely benefit wealthier families. Children from lower-income homes, they say, would remain in public schools now trying to survive with less money after the vouchers are funded.

Early research suggested that students who benefited from vouchers outperformed their peers who remained in public schools. But those voucher programs were small by today’s standards. More recent research in states with much larger programs, including Louisiana and Ohio, has documented worse academic outcomes for voucher recipients.

State Rep. Don Parsons of Marietta, one of the 16 Republicans who voted against the bill earlier this year, said most of his constituents in Cherokee and Cobb counties wouldn’t have access to the vouchers because of the high-performing public schools in his area. The legislation restricts participation to students in schools performing in the bottom quartile in Georgia.

The author of SB 233, state Sen. Greg Dolezal, has pushed for vouchers ever since he first entered the Senate in 2019.

The Republican from Cumming thinks this might be the time the idea wins passage. SB 233, he says, has the support of “heavy hitters,” including Gov. Brian Kemp.

Speaking at a Moms for Liberty forum in November in Gwinnett County, Dolezal said, “The winds have changed on this issue.”

Credit: University of Georgia

Credit: University of Georgia

Georgia redistricting now back in judge’s court

Eyes will turn toward U.S. District Judge Steve Jones when he holds a hearing Wednesday on the congressional and legislative maps that the Republican-led General Assembly produced earlier this month.

The new maps became necessary after Jones ruled in October that the political lines the state Legislature drew in 2021 weakened Black voting power in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Jones said those maps failed to provide adequate opportunities for Black voters, whose population has surged since 2010 while the number of white residents declined.

It will be up to Jones to determine whether the new maps comply with his order to create one more majority-Black congressional district, two similar districts in the state Senate and five more in the state House.

Republican leaders say they followed Jones’ order, but Democrats disagree, saying the GOP’s maps move voters in a way that still denies Black voters representation.

In Georgia, Black voters overwhelmingly support Democrats and white voters generally back Republicans.

The new maps preserve Republicans’ 9-5 majority in the state’s U.S. House delegation and the GOP’s control in the General Assembly.

Under the new boundaries, it’s Democrats who may face the greatest burden electing their candidates. That’s especially true in the state House, where three pairs of Democratic incumbents were drawn together in the same districts, meaning at least half of them won’t return after the next election. Only one pair of GOP incumbents experienced a similar fate.

Attorneys for Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, a historically Black fraternity that was one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that led to Jones’ order, aired their objections to the new maps this past week.

“The 2023 proposed plans fail to address the vote dilution found by this court after (the) trial. They instead perpetuate it,” the attorneys wrote in their complaint.

If Jones rules against the new maps, he could appoint an expert to redraw them. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court could ultimately decide the case.

Georgia election officials have said that districts must be finalized by sometime in January to ensure there’s time to prepare for next year’s elections.

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

Raffensperger proposal would let voters check computer codes on ballots

Georgia voters could soon be able to confirm that computer codes match the printed text on ballots before they’re counted under a plan Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is promoting.

Raffensperger is asking legislators for $4.7 million to buy devices that can read QR codes for every polling site in the state.

Georgia’s voting system relies on a combination of touchscreens and printers, which produce a sheet of paper that includes a QR code — along with a human-readable list of the voter’s choices. Then voters insert their ballots into optical scanning machines that read the bar code, which counts as the official vote.

Election integrity advocates have said QR codes prevent human verification of ballots and could be manipulated by hackers, though there’s no evidence that has ever happened in an election.

Raffensperger tried to put skeptics at ease during a recent joint hearing of the state House and Senate budget committees.

“Some voters question, ‘Well, how do I know what the QR code reader is reading?’ " he said. “So if you had a QR code reader, to the voters that are concerned, then you’ll be able to actually do that in every precinct.”

Senate Appropriations Chairman Blake Tillery suggested removing QR codes from ballots and scanning them like standardized tests.

That, however, would require new printers that are able to create longer ballots with ovals next to voters’ choices, similar to absentee ballots. Raffensperger’s office has estimated that option would cost $15 million to buy 32,500 new ballot printers that can handle an 18-inch-long ballot.

Lawmakers will consider Raffensperger’s proposal as part of the annual state budget process during the legislative session that begins Jan. 8.

DAs call off lawsuit challenging oversight panel for prosecutors — for now

A bipartisan group of district attorneys has dropped its lawsuit challenging the state’s new oversight commission for prosecutors after the Georgia Supreme Court sidelined the law that created it.

In a ruling last month, the court expressed “grave doubts” that it had the constitutional authority to approve rules and a code of conduct for the Prosecuting Attorneys Qualifications Commission as called for in the law that established the panel.

If allowed to proceed, the commission — which was a priority of Gov. Brian Kemp — would have had the power to investigate, sanction and even oust district attorneys it had determined were not doing their job.

DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston, one of the prosecutors who initiated the suit, said she is ready to renew the legal challenge if GOP lawmakers overhaul the measure in the next legislative session.

“We stand ready to fight any new efforts to undermine the work of Georgia’s district attorneys and silence the voters who elected us,” Boston said.

That fight is probably not far off. State Rep. Houston Gaines, R-Athens, has vowed to rewrite the measure in hopes of resolving the court’s issues.

Political expedience