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In a new filing, a plaintiff in the long-running legal battle over Alabama’s medical marijuana licenses claims that the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission repeatedly violated state laws by conducting inspections and reviews in secret and that staff lobbied the Alabama Legislature for immunity – an indication that AMCC staff and/or commissioners had behaved improperly.
The claims were made in a filing from Alabama Always, LLC., one of several companies that was denied a license and subsequently filed suit against the AMCC. Those lawsuits, which a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge has repeatedly found have merit and have uncovered serious issues with the AMCC’s licensing process, have effectively stalled the process of getting medical weed to patients.
Now more than three years after the legislation allowing for medical marijuana was passed, Alabama patients are apparently no closer to receiving the drug. Attorneys from both sides involved in the legal battle have privately said they see a legal entanglement that, because of early mistakes, is nowhere near over.
Alabama Always’ most recent filing comes in response to a motion to dismiss filed by the AMCC and the Alabama Agriculture Commissioner, which claims that the applicant companies have no standing to sue at this point because they have not yet gone through an appeals process with the AMCC. (Generally, legal procedure would require an applicant to first exhaust all administrative remedies before a court will consider a lawsuit.)
But Alabama Always argues that its arguments should be considered, because the Dec. 12 AMCC meeting, at which the Commission awarded five licenses, was not held in accordance with the Alabama Administrative Procedures Act (AAPA) and violated state laws. Specifically, the filing claims that the AMCC failed to produce any documentation of the “secret” inspections and certifications it held during the process of awarding the licenses.
As a result, Alabama Always is asking the court to move forward with the discovery process, forcing the AMCC to publicly reveal the manner in which it made its licensing selections. The AMCC has argued that it has followed the rules it put in place to govern the medical cannabis licensing process.
“That the Commission has committed procedural irregularities is factually undisputed, but the full extent of the Commission’s procedural irregularities cannot be fully ascertained without discovery,” the Alabama Always filing states. “The reason why the existence of procedural irregularities is undisputed is this: The Commission does not deny that it has engaged in ‘inspections’ and ‘certifications,’ but claims that these inspections and certifications are not ‘proceedings’ that must be made public. In fact, the Commission essentially admits that it failed to follow the AAPA in its licensing efforts thus far; it simply contends that it is not required to comply with the AAPA because its rules do not comply with the AAPA.”
The filing goes on to detail specific language within the AAPA that would seem to govern the public disclosure of the “licensing” process for all Alabama government agencies. And it claims that even AMCC staff could be unaware of the number of “secret” actions taken, because there are apparently no records being kept.
“There is no question that the inspections, certifications, and investigations that the Commission has been conducting in secret are part of the overall licensing process that must be conducted in accordance with the contested case provisions of the AAPA,” the filing states. “It is equally clear that no one, maybe not even anyone on the Commission’s staff, knows exactly how many inspections, certifications, and inspections have been conducted in secret.”
The filing also notes that the discovery requested by Alabama Always is confined to specific topics, including questions about why the AMCC – the filing doesn’t name an individual or offer evidence – lobbied the Alabama Legislature for immunity to be included in any reworked legislation related to the medical cannabis licensing process.
