ALABAMA, USA — Medical cannabis became legal in Alabama in May of 2021 after Act 2021-450 was signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey.
This then allowed the creation of the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission, or AMCC, who began accepting medical marijuana licensing applications last year.
And even though some of those companies were recently selected for licenses by the commission, AMCC is facing a legal battle - that's in turn delaying any disbursement of medical cannabis in the state.
Many didn't foresee that two years later, we'd still be on hold with getting medical cannabis distributed here in Alabama.
Chey Garrigan, the founding director of the nonprofit Alabama Cannabis Industry Association, says, "we definitely leave it to Alabama. We always like to do things a lot differently down here."
Garrigan consults with individuals seeking medical marijuana licenses and supports the AMCC, while bringing any questions or concerns to them about the licensing process.
She shares a stay was placed on medical marijuana licenses, meaning the commission currently cannot issue licenses to grow and distribute medical cannabis and they can't move forward with a patient registry list.
This pause is due to the current lawsuits against the commission, that claim there were violations throughout the application process.
One example being an alleged violation of the Open Meetings Act.
"We don't know what was said behind closed doors and if there was ever anything. But that's what the lawsuit is about," Garrigan said.
Another claim being file size issues and limitations when filling out the application.
Garrigan says she worked with applicants who had this issue and they reached out to AMCC with questions hours before the application deadline.
"We sent, you know, sent a message over to the commission immediately, probably within about a minute they responded with this is how to handle this."
As she's been observing this case in the courtroom, Garrigan says the term "workaround" has been used in reference to the applicants who got their questions answered about uploading files.
But she says not everyone got this information if they had the issue because, "if they didn't contact the commission and let the commission know that they were having issues, the commission had no way to give them a, quote, 'workaround' in order to get their file docs to be submitted," Garrigan said.
She hopes Alabama will soon be able to continue with the process to make medical cannabis accessible.
"What we need to do right now is just get started, just hit the ground running….We'll be able to fix the problems as they come up and, you know, adjust the program to the way that it needs to be adjusted. But for right now, we can't do anything. We don't know anything…."
AMCC has their next meeting scheduled for October 12th, 2023.
Chey Garrigan welcomes any questions about medical cannabis to the email: info@alabamacannaconference.com