“The Court also notes that the three rounds of awards were challenged as being legally infirm.”
By Alander Rocha, Alabama Reflector
In the wake of ongoing lawsuits regarding the selection process for the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission, a Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge on Wednesday night blocked the Commission from issuing licenses to all-inclusive medical cannabis facilities.
In his order, Judge James Anderson stated that the third attempt at awarding licenses,, in December 2023 after two previous attempts in 2023 was based on “uneven grounds” due to the unresolved litigation surrounding the first two.
The court noted that the three rounds of awards had been challenged for being legally invalid. “The first two rounds were abandoned due to the action of the Commission itself. Now there is serious doubt as to whether or not the third round of awards is also invalid,” Anderson said in his order.
Last week, the judge placed a hold of cultivator’s licenses but not dispensary licenses. The court decided that there was still a chance for the cultivator licenses to be awarded, as there were more available licenses than applicants. This is different from the decision made regarding dispensary licences. Other license categories have not been affected.
Anderson wrote that he is sympathetic to the idea of making medical cannabis accessible to patients. However, the availability of the product does not mean that the commission will suffer harm. The concern was expressed six months ago during the first round licensing.
AMCC received a message Thursday asking for comments.
AMCC claims that the licenses were not revoked because they had only awarded them, and not issued them. Dungan stated that there is no difference in law between granting a license or issuing one, and the term “grant” is used interchangeably. This distinction only exists in the rules that were voted upon by the commission.
He said that since none of the procedural requirements had been met, no licenses could be awarded in December. “Because, under the law a attempted revocation by an agency which does not comply with the Administrative Procedures Act and the procedures is invalid. It’s void.”
Dungan claimed that there was no difference in the law that separates the two terms.
He said: “We agree that if an appellate court were to agree with the Commission that the revocation of licenses was not a cancellation and that everything was fine, in that event we would agree that the actions taken by the Commission in December violated its own rules.”
The Alabama Legislature approved the medical cannabis program in 2021. However, the legislation authorizing the program didn’t allow for licenses to issue until September 1, 2022. AMCC started accepting applications in late 2013.
Patients certified by participating doctors will be able use medical cannabis to treat 15 conditions including cancer, chronic back pain, depression, and Parkinson’s Disease once the product becomes available. Patients must apply for a medical cannabis card in order to purchase it from licensed distributors.
The law prohibits the consumption of medical cannabis in food or as a smoked product. The products will come in the form of tablets, capsules or gelatins. They can also be found as oils, gels or creams. Cannabis gummies can only be peach-flavored.
Twelve applicants competed for 12 cultivator licences. Twelve more applicants applied for the available four processor licenses. Meanwhile, 18 people applied for each of the four dispensary licences. The commission received 11 applications for transport licenses and three for testing licenses.
The hearing for a preliminary injunction has been set for the 24th of January.
This article was originally published by Alabama Reflector.
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