The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission will try again Thursday to award licenses to companies that want to make and sell medical marijuana products under a law approved two years ago.
On June 12, the AMCC awarded licenses to 21 companies out of 90 that applied to be cultivators, processors, transporters, testing labs, dispensers, or integrated facilities that do several functions.
But the AMCC put a hold on those decisions four days later, saying it had found inconsistencies in how it tabulated scores used to evaluate applicants. The AMCC is redoing the procedure, which has drawn legal challenges.
Seven companies that were not awarded licenses have sued the commission. One company, Sustainable Alabama, which the AMCC chose for an integrated facility license, joined the lawsuit as a defendant.
A main complaint by the companies that have sued the AMCC is that it did not make the licensing decisions during a public meeting. The AMCC closed the June 12 meeting to the public for several hours before reopening it and announcing the license awards with little or no discussion.
The AMCC said Alabama’s open meetings law allowed the closed session. The law requires government boards to meet in public but allows closed sessions, or executive sessions, for certain exceptions, including discussion about litigation.
Alabama Always and Specialty Medical Products of Alabama (SMPA), two companies that applied for integrated licenses to cultivate, process, and sell medical cannabis, have asked a judge to issue a temporary restraining order to prohibit the AMCC from closing Thursday’s meeting.
“In the event that SMPA is not awarded a license by the Commission, SMPA will be without necessary information to prosecute an appeal of the Commission’s decision if all of the Commission’s deliberations are held in secret; among other things, it will not know which of its submitted documents were scored or viewed by the Commission, whether there were omissions of any documents or information, or what weight was given to individual considerations within categories,” attorneys for SMPA told the court in their motion.
Companies that are not awarded a license can request an investigative hearing with the AMCC. SMPA’s lawyers said the company would not have the information or time to effectively file an appeal if the AMCC holds its deliberations on the decisions in a closed meeting. They said the potential harm to SMPA for a closed meeting outweighed any harm to the AMCC for keeping the meeting open.
“In fact, it is difficult to understand how holding its deliberations in an open meeting could harm the Commission at all,” lawyers for the SMPA wrote in their motion.
Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson has not ruled on the motion for a temporary restraining order, according to online court records. The AMCC’s meeting agenda for Thursday shows that it plans to go into executive session. The commission will have to vote to do so, under the open meetings law.
Last week, Dr. Steven Stokes, a radiation oncologist from Dothan, announced he would resign as AMMC chairman. Lawyers who represent Alabama Always in their lawsuit filed a motion in court on behalf of a plaintiff asking that Stokes be removed from the AMCC because he is a trustee at the University of South Alabama. The law setting up the commission says that public officials cannot serve as commission members.
The AMCC hired the University of South Alabama to help evaluate the applications. The university recruited people to help assign scores to the applications for licenses. The AMCC said potential inconsistencies in the tabulation of the scores were the problem that led to redoing the license awards. The AMCC hired an accounting firm to review and verify the application scores after the problem was found.
Stokes had served as chair of the AMCC since it was formed two years ago. The Legislature passed a bill in 2021 authorizing medical marijuana and creating the commission to oversee the regulation of the new industry. Stokes said he has seen his cancer patients benefit from the medical marijuana products available in Florida.
“If they’re taking chemotherapy for their cancer and they vomit non-stop for two days, and you then give them medical marijuana and they don’t have have any nausea, that’s a great relief,” Stokes said when he was named chairman in 2021.
An attorney who represents Stokes said he resigned to remove any distraction over his appointment and avoid potential delays in getting medical marijuana products to patients.
A key question is what effect the delay will have on availability of medical marijuana products. AMCC officials have said they expect products to be available late this year or early next year. Products can include gummies, tablets, capsules, tinctures, patches, oils, and other forms allowed by the legislation.
Patients who receive a medical cannabis card from a doctor will be able to buy the products at licensed dispensaries.
The products can 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.
Alabama is one of 38 states that have approved medical marijuana, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Read more: Montgomery company ready to grow, process medical cannabis, awaits license
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