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The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission held its December meeting on Thursday.
As APR has continually reported on, the commission has been caught up in lawsuits over its licensure process for years. Several prospective license holders, most prominently Alabama Always, have filed lawsuits against the commission, accusing the AMCC of mishandling applications, violating procedural requirements, and engaging in improper rule-making. Meanwhile, years after the state legislature approved a medical marijuana program, there are still no licensed providers in the state.
During the meeting, attorney Mark Wilkerson reminded the committee that oral arguments before the Court of Civil Appeals have been scheduled for January 13 and briefly discussed the state of the mediation process.
In October, Judge James Anderson found that the “use of alternative dispute resolution is appropriate in this case and could result in the speedy and just resolution of the above-styled matter,” and appointed Judge Eugene Reese as an official mediator. While onlookers widely viewed the move towards mediation as a set-back for the AMCC, Wilkerson seemed to have viewed the first meeting positively.
He reported that it lasted “over eight hours” and he believed “all the parties participated in good faith as far as we could tell; everybody is earnestly working toward a potential resolution.” Wilkerson also explained that the terms of the mediation prevented him from discussing the process in public, but offered to talk with interested members of the commission privately.
The second mediation meeting will be held next Wednesday and Wilkerson expressed hope that the lawyers “would have something to bring back to the commission” after the next few sessions.
“The way that I see it, we’ve got to move from point A to point B. And right now point A is the log jam that we have of litigation,” Chairman Rex Vaughn told the commission. “Point B is where we all want to get which is serving patients and I believe I feel strongly that that all of the parties have an interest in seeing Alabama get to point B.”
After the commission had been briefed on and then discussed the ongoing lawsuits and mediation process, they voted on reducing the license fees. (Despite the years of litigation preventing them from actually making use of the licenses, firms still have to pay the license fees.)
The initial proposal was to reduce the annual license fee by two-thirds, from $40 thousand to just over $13 thousand, but it failed to garner a majority. Five commission members voted for a two-thirds reduction, five against.
“It’s a schedule one controlled substance, and I really think we all have to take into consideration that we as the commission don’t want it to be easy to get a license and have access to grow a plant that’s a controlled one substance federally,” one commissioner explained.
After the first motion failed, Dr. Eric Jensen motioned to consider a 25 percent reduction instead, which handily passed after some brief debate.
“We all kind of sit here and understand why this litigation is before us,” Dr. William Saliski said. “We all shake our heads and we all keep walking as a result. Due to this litigation there are people that in good faith have put money forward who may be struggling and may wind up having to forfeit their licensure because of nothing that they’ve done.”
“If one or two of these people bail because they run out of money, and we have to start again with new licensers, then in my estimation I think the bad guys win,” Saliski declared.
Vaughn posited that everyone on the AMCC “would agree about everything he just mentioned.”
“I think all of us are frustrated that our licensees are having to ante up fees and they’re not making any headway – at least, they don’t feel like they are,” he remarked. “But I do have a hope that we’re certainly closer now than we were a few months ago.”
