Legal battles are delaying Alabama’s medical cannabis rollout, leaving thousands of patients in limbo as both regulators and licensees push for court approval to start operations.
Alabama Cannabis Regulators and Licensees Ask Court to End Injunction and Allow Businesses to Begin Operations
Montgomery, Alabama, USA with the State Capitol.
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Companies awarded medical cannabis licenses in Alabama are seeking a court order to allow them to begin operations, AL.com reports. The bid is supported by the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC), which has attempted three times since June 2023 to award the licenses but lawsuits have hampered the process.
In a motion to Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson, attorneys for the AMCC are asking him to lift the most recent temporary restraining order that has blocked companies from beginning operations.
“Lost in the interminable medical cannabis litigation are the thousands of patients for whom the Compassion Act was enacted.” — AMCC attorneys in the motion via AL.com
The AMCC has awarded licenses to cultivators, processors, secure transporters, and a state testing lab, and while cultivators have begun growing, integrated licensees have been blocked by lawsuits.
In his July 11 ruling enacting the temporary restraining order, Anderson wrote that “the court is sympathetic to the public interest in getting medicine in the hands of patients” but that the AMCC license approvals from December 12 “are the Commission’s third round of licensing awards at issue.”
“…and the prior two award rounds remain the subject of ongoing litigation,” he wrote, “meaning that the Commission’s effort to issue licenses now, based on the third round, is already on uneven ground.”
A pending lawsuit by Alabama Always, which was denied a license and has repeatedly sued the AMCC, claims the agency has not followed the law, including the Alabama Administrative Procedures Act, in awarding licenses.
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