There were no immediate breakthroughs during a two-hour hearing Tuesday on the lawsuits by companies competing for Alabama’s limited number of medical marijuana licenses.
Lawyers packed the front of the courtroom and the jury box for the hearing held by Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson.
More than a dozen companies are involved in the litigation, which concerns how the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) awarded licenses to the companies that will grow, process, and dispense medical marijuana.
The Legislature passed a bill called the Compassion Act three years ago, making Alabama the 36th state to legalize medical marijuana. The licensing disputes have stopped the new industry from fully launching, and it is uncertain when medical products will be available.
The AMCC has issued licenses to some companies, including cultivators, who are already growing the plants. But the industry cannot fully begin and provide products to patients until at least some of the legal issues are resolved. The disputes concern licenses for integrated companies – which will grow, process, and dispense medical cannabis – and for companies that will be dispensaries only.
Companies in those categories have asked Anderson to vacate or modify a temporary restraining he issued in July to allow licensing to proceed. Their positions generally align with the AMCC, whose lawyers are also asking Anderson to lift or modify his order.
On the other side are companies denied licenses that claim the AMCC has violated state laws, including the Compassion Act, the Alabama Administrative Procedures Act, and the Open Meetings Act in the way it picked companies for licenses.
When Anderson issued the temporary restraining order in July, he wrote that the companies challenging the AMCC’s procedures as not following state laws had shown a reasonable chance that they could succeed on the merits of those claims.
Alabama Always, which was denied a integrated license, has spearheaded much of the litigation against the AMCC. The company said it spent about $5 million building a cultivation and production facility in Montgomery.
In its most recent motion, filed Friday, Alabama Always asked Anderson to appoint a special master to take over the licensing process because of what the company claims are the AMCC’s repeated failures to follow the Administrative Procedures Act and the Open Meetings Act.
William Somerville, attorney for Alabama Always, said after Tuesday’s hearing that he expected to file a motion for summary judgement, challenging the AMCC on several key issues.
“The process is clearly flawed,” Somerville said. “And this has to be a way to move the whole process forward to make sure that the licenses that are issued, when they are issued, are legal and enforceable and that there can’t be any challenge to them. Because right now we’ve got a situation where they keep issuing licenses and keep doing so in violation of the law and it’s just got the whole process mired in mud.”
Jemmstone Alabama, another denied applicant for an integrated license, has similar claims against the AMCC.
On the other side are several companies that were awarded integrated licenses.
Sustainable Alabama has been awarded an integrated license three times by the AMCC, in June, August, and December 2023. The AMCC rescinded the first two rounds of awards and the December awards are on hold and the subject of the current litigation.
Joel Connally, a lawyer for Sustainable Alabama, urged Anderson to use the court’s discretion and modify the temporary restraining order to allow the AMCC to issue a license to his company, as a three-time awardee, and allow the industry to begin work while other litigation runs its course. Connally said there is a risk that the Legislature could grow frustrated with the legal costs and lack of progress and repeal the law.
“The injunction remains the poison that can kill this thing,” Connally told Anderson.
Near the end of Tuesday’s hearing, Anderson said the session had been informative and productive. He said he would consider modifying his temporary restraining order to allow investigative hearings for companies denied licenses to take place. The investigative hearing process is one of the points of contention. Companies denied licenses say the hearings are not a meaningful way to appeal the AMCC’s decisions and do not comply with state law.
Anderson announced two decisions. He said he would grant a request by Agriculture & Industries Commissioner Rick Pate to be dismissed as a defendant in the litigation. The Compassion Act initially made the Department of Agriculture & Industries responsible for regulating companies that cultivate medical cannabis. But the Legislature revised the law to make the AMCC fully responsible for regulating cultivators.
Anderson denied a motion by patient advocate Amanda Taylor of Cullman to intervene in the litigation. Taylor suffers from multiple sclerosis and other conditions. Taylor moved away from Alabama to try medical cannabis and said she benefitted from it when she lived in Arizona. She returned to her home state to lobby the Legislature to pass the Compassion Act three years ago. She is executive director of the Patients Coalition for Medical Cannabis.
The judge said he was sympathetic to patients who need medical marijuana but said Taylor did not have legal standing to be a party in the litigation between companies applying for licenses and the AMCC.
Ashton Ott, attorney for Taylor, said intervention in the case was appropriate because no other parties in the case represent patients.
“The patients need a seat at the table,” Ott said.
Anderson said there’s nothing preventing Taylor from making public comments about the lawsuits.
Taylor said after the hearing she was disappointed by the decision but would continue to show up and speak out.
“We have all these lawyers that are keeping everything held back and it’s not fair to the patients because they are sick, they are suffering, and they are dying,” Taylor said.
The Compassion Act, passed in 2021, allows companies to make gummies, tablets, capsules, tinctures, patches, oils, and other forms of medical marijuana. Patients who receive a recommendation from a certified doctor will get a medical cannabis card that will allow them to buy the products at licensed dispensaries.
The law allows the products to be used to treat a wide range of conditions, including chronic pain, weight loss and nausea from cancer, depression, panic disorder, epilepsy, muscle spasms caused by disease or spinal cord injuries, PTSD, and others.
Lawyers for companies competing for medical marijuana licenses packed the front of a Montgomery courtroom Tuesday. Read More