Pictures by me

March 24th – Going to the Capitol for the first time was a really interesting, yet intimidating experience. From all the architecture to the committee meetings themselves was a lot to take in, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. I thought it was interesting how the language of the bill can be altered before it’s reviewed to be passed. Being able to sit in a room while a bill is in the process of being passed or changed is almost unimaginable. After going through a self-guided tour with a group of classmates, we headed to a committee meeting regarding THC in Georgia. 

The first bill was Senate bill 33, in which they wanted vapes to be tested and labeled because you can’t tell whether it’s nicotine or THC. This bill was shut down but another bill was agreed upon. This bill focused on limiting synthetic THC products. This bill did have some of the language rewritten, which I thought was really interesting as I thought what is said goes. Since cannabinoids can occur naturally, lawmakers would rather get people to use that instead using vapes that have unknown substances in them.

After the meeting my group and I got to talk to a member of the Georgia Medical Marijuana Society, Yolanda Bennett. She explained that her main concern with the bills were if labs were tampering with evidence of testing. 

A groupmates and I also talked to Rep. Inga Willis, who was involved in changing the language of the bill. 

Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of myself at the Capitol, but I still had a great time. I thought it was so cool being in the same room as all of those Georgia lawmakers. There were many points of the discussions, and just some of the language overall that I struggled to understand. It was also nice to see how lawmakers interacted with each other. There were, of course, disagreements, but everyone was very respectful.