Last Friday, the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) voted to stay all proceedings related to the current offering of medical cannabis business licenses. This decision was made just four days after announcing that the Commission had voted to accept the applications from 21 entities to be licensed marijuana growers, processors, transporters, laboratories, and integrated facilities.
The Commission said in Friday’s statement that the stay was issued because of AMCC’s discovery of potential inconsistencies in the tabulation of scoring data. During this pause in proceedings, the Commission will seek an independent review of all scoring data.
“The Commission will work expeditiously to investigate and identify inconsistencies in the score data,” explained AMCC Director John McMillan. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are suspending all current procedural timelines until those matters are resolved.”
Because the program has been suspended pending the independent review, applicants awarded a license on June 12, 2023, are not required to pay the license fee by June 26, 2023. The dozens of applicants who were denied an award of license on June 12, 2023, are not required to submit a request for an investigative hearing by June 26, 2023, as a review is already underway.
All of this means that the licenses awarded on June 12, 2023, will not be issued on July 10, 2023, after all.
Alabamians who had been hoping to be able to legally buy Alabama-grown medical cannabis by the end of 2023 are going to have to move that back considerably.
The AMCC said that the stay will remain in effect until lifted by the Commission. Once the stay is lifted, the Commission will reconsider the award of licenses and provide a timeline for the payment of license fees, request for investigative hearings, and issuance of licenses.
The University of South Alabama assisted the AMCC with scoring the applications.
Alabama Today had been made aware of civil litigation that was likely coming over the award of the applications, with potential plaintiffs citing some of the perceived inconsistencies in the awards. Friday’s action by the Commission appears to be a proactive step by the Commissioners to get ahead of the courts on this.
The Alabama Legislature passed, and Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed, legislation in 2021, creating the AMCC. The AMCC was tasked with writing the rules for creating an Alabama medical cannabis industry and determining the criteria for businesses and farmers to be licensed to be involved in the industry.
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