The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission and several companies it selected for business licenses have asked a judge to clear the way to begin work on getting products to patients.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson will hold a hearing Tuesday on those requests and other issues in a lawsuit involving more than a dozen companies competing for a limited number of medical marijuana licenses.
It has been more than three years since the Legislature passed a bill to make Alabama the 36th state (there are now 38) to legalize medical marijuana. The law, called the Compassion Act, created the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) to oversee the intrastate industry, from cultivating plants to selling products.
The AMCC has tried three times since June 2023 to issue licenses. But lawsuits and challenges to the agency’s procedures have stalled the process.
“Lost in the interminable medical cannabis litigation are the thousands of patients for whom the Compassion Act was enacted,” lawyers for the AMCC wrote in a motion asking Anderson to lift or modify a temporary restraining order issued on July 11 and allow the licensing process to resume.
The Legislature determined that medical cannabis “will not only benefit patients by providing relief for pain and other debilitating symptoms, but also provide opportunities for patients with these debilitating conditions to function and have a better quality of life,” the AMCC’s lawyers wrote in the motion.
Three companies, all awarded licenses by the AMCC that are blocked by the temporary restraining order, support the AMCC’s request. They have also filed motions asking the judge to lift or revise his order to let the process resume.
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.
But the production and availability of the medications is on hold.
The AMCC has issued licenses to cultivators, processors, secure transporters, and a state testing lab. Cultivators are growing the plants.
But licenses to integrated companies, which will cultivate, process, and dispense medical cannabis and will be the largest in the new industry, are on hold. More than 30 companies applied for integrated licenses, but by law, the AMCC can issue no more than five.
The AMCC awarded the five licenses on Dec. 12. But the agency distinguishes between awarding licenses and issuing licenses. It cannot issue licenses because of the court order.
Lawyers for three companies – Flowerwood Medical Cannabis, Specialty Medical Products of Alabama, and Sustainable Alabama – filed motions in July and August that are largely aligned with the AMCC, asking the court to let the process resume while the litigation continues.
“This equitable relief is needed to protect all parties having an interest in establishing the medical cannabis program … most importantly, the citizens of Alabama who desperately seek and anxiously await the medical relief promised to them by this Act,” lawyers for Flowerwood Medical Cannabis wrote.
Licenses for companies that intend to operate only as dispensaries are also on hold because of the court order.
The competition for the integrated licenses has sparked most the litigation.
Alabama Always, a denied applicant for an integrated license, has repeatedly sued the AMCC. The company built a cultivation and production facility in Montgomery at what it said was a cost of about $5 million. It claims that the AMCC has not followed the law, including the Alabama Administrative Procedures Act, in awarding licenses.
In the ruling on July 11 granting the temporary restraining order, Anderson wrote that Alabama Always had at least a reasonable chance of succeeding on its claims against the AMCC.
“Again, the court is sympathetic to the public interest in getting medicine in the hands of patients,” Anderson wrote. “That said, the December 12 awards are the Commission’s third round of licensing awards at issue, and the prior two award rounds remain the subject of ongoing litigation – meaning that the Commission’s effort to issue licenses now, based on the third round, is already on uneven ground.”
On the other side of the fight is Sustainable Alabama. It was selected for an integrated license by the AMCC during all three rounds of awards – in June, August, and December of last year but awaits the issuance of a license before it can start cultivation and production. In the meantime, the company has to continue spending money to maintain readiness. That is not sustainable, the company said.
“At some point the potential of profits will never overcome the mounting losses this legal quagmire has created,” Sustainable Alabama told the court in its motion to revise the temporary restraining order. “If the Court does not provide more equitable relief through some type of modification of the restraining order, it will virtually guarantee that the qualified awarded businesses make a business decision to walk away.”
The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission is also urging the court to allow licensing to proceed so patients can get the products. Read More