The session’s over — still more work to do

It’s OK, you can come out of hiding now. The 2017 session of the Georgia General Assembly is over. By the time you read this, janitors will be sweeping up the confetti and other paper lawmakers throw around as their Sine Die moment arrived.

The legislators are just as happy to get out of Atlanta as we are to have them leave. What started on January 9 is supposed to last but 40 days — and it does — but those days are not consecutive. And, as always, the last week has been a whirlwind with sessions lasting into the night.

One bill that did make it was House Bill 338. It will create a chief turnaround officer for what the state calls “failing schools.” At first glance this resembles the governor’s failed Opportunity School District idea that went down in flames in the November election. This bill, however, is different in many respects. But we still wonder, even with the new wrinkles and grants that will go along with this new effort, what the state can do to effectively combat many of the outside forces that have a negative impact on children and their education.

Another bill that has passed the House and Senate is House Bill 280, better known as the campus carry bill. The Senate made changes so it had to go back to the House Thursday. The bill is very similar to the bill Gov. Deal vetoed last year and even if it passes, he could do so again and every public and private college president hopes that he would.

Rep. Allen Peake’s medicinal marijuana bill stepped over a big hurdle Tuesday, fighting back a senseless challenge from the Senate to lower the potency of cannabis oil from 5 percent THC to 3 percent. Peake was able to add six more conditions to cover patients suffering from severe forms of autism, AIDS, Alzheimer’s disease and Tourette’s syndrome. It also covers patients in hospice programs, no matter their disease. It passed the House 167-4 and Peake received a standing ovation. Who would have believed back in 2015 when Peake introduced House Bill 1 that his effort would be successful — and from a Republican?

Still there is one huge roadblock. In order to get the medicine, the patients or their parents have to leave the state because the product can’t be legally produced in Georgia. And those who leave the state and bring it back, while immune from state prosecution, are breaking federal law.

That said, parents are taking that risk. Why? Life threatening seizures have dramatically decreased. A child speaking for the first time. Debilitating pain abated. There is, of course, more work to do.

This story was originally published March 30, 2017 at 9:00 PM with the headline "The session’s over — still more work to do."