Marijuana litigation assigned to mediation

October 25, 2024 – MONTGOMERY, AL – On Tuesday Montgomery Circuit Judge James Anderson has assigned the ongoing medical marijuana case to mediator Gene Reese.

Reese is being tasked with sitting down with plaintiffs' attorneys and attorneys for the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) and attempting to craft a workable resolution to this ongoing litigation.

The AMCC is being sued by business entities that applied for medical marijuana licenses; but were not awarded a license by the AMCC. The plaintiffs, for a host of different reasons, claim that they were more deserving than the entities that were awarded licenses back in December and that the process by which the AMCC ranked the applicants and made their license awards.

Judge Anderson has a restraining order in place that keeps the AMCC from issung the cannabis licenses to dispensaries and integrated facilities (that grow, sell, and market medical cannabis in the state). Since no one can legally dispense Alabama grown medical cannabis in the state lawfully no one has been able to purchase cannabis products in Alabama – even though the AMCC has issued the grower licenses. The growers have no lawful outlet for their product – which has been frozen pending the resolution of this litigation.

Chey Garrigan is the founder and President of the Alabama Cannabis Industry Association.

"We are hopeful that a settlement can be reached so that we can finally get this industry up and operational, so that we can help Alabamians with a qualifying medical need," Garrigan told the Alabama Gazette.

"Mediation is normally the final process before an agreement is reached," said Garrigan. "We hope to see a positive outcome. We are pretty confident of a positive outcome."

The AMCC originally awarded licenses back in June of 2023; but failed applicants sued to block those license awards. At the urging of the court, the commission vacated those awards and issued new awards in August of 2023. Failed applicants still were unhappy with the outcome so the AMCC vacated the August license awards and made new license awards after two weeks of public presentations from dozens of applicants. The failed applicants again objected to this third round of awards and sought relief from Judge Anderson.

The enormous cost of the ongoing litigation, which is largely being handled by contract attorneys, and the cost of having to maintain a state agency, the AMCC, that has no regular revenue stream coming in is costing state coffers millions of dollars. All of that money is having to come out of the general fund budget – the smaller of the two state budgets (education being the other).

Former State Representative Perry O Hooper Jr. (R-Montgomery) told the Alabama Gazette that it is important that the parties get this resolved or the legislature may move to end the medical marijuana experiment altogether.

"The legislature is really getting fed up with this," said Hooper. "They need to get something done and move on."

State Senator Greg Albritton (R-Atmore), who chairs the Senate Finance & Taxation General Fund Committee warned the industry during the last legislative session that if this comes back to the Legislature that he may introduce legislation to shut medical cannabis down rather than continue this legal quagmire indefinitely into the future.

The Alabama Legislature passed, and Governor Kay Ivey signed, legislation legalizing medical cannabis in the state of Alabama and creating the AMCC to be the regulatory authority over Alabama medical cannabis. That original legislation limits the number of licenses that the AMCC may issue. For the integrator licenses that is limited to just five. 26 applied. Some of the failed applicants have even built facilities – erroneously believing that if they had a facility already built then they were more likely to be awarded one of the five licenses. Millions of dollars have been spent by the dozens of applicants and there is no legal way for the AMCC to satisfy all of the applicants.

"We know if this comes back up before the Legislature they will shut it down," said

To date not one Alabamian with a qualifying medical need that might be helped by medical cannabis has been able to lawfully purchase the product even though the Legislature passed this almost three and a half years ago.

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