Sixteen months after issuing a restraining order that an appellate court recently overturned, a Montgomery County judge officially ended the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission’s third attempt to issue licenses and launch the state’s medical market.
In the case of Jemmstone Alabama LLC et. al. v. Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission et. al., Montgomery Circuit Court Judge James Anderson declared on April 21 that the integrated facility licenses awarded on Dec. 12, 2023, are void because they were issued through the use of emergency regulations, which Anderson said were not properly implemented by the AMCC.
“However efficacious medical cannabis is, or however desirable the availability of medical cannabis might be as an alternative to other treatments (as the Legislature has found), any need for medical cannabis is not a public health ’emergency’ justifying the Commission’s bypassing of the normal rule making process,” wrote Anderson.
This may put the AMCC back to square one for issuing integrated facility licenses four years after the state first legalized medical cannabis. The AMCC has yet to say what the next move will be in its prolonged attempt to open the market. The next meeting is scheduled for May 15. As yet, no agenda for the meeting has been posted.
But the agency did criticize the timing of the court’s order:
“The Montgomery Circuit Court entered injunctions that have completely stalled the Commission’s licensing process for the past 16 months,” said the commission in an unsigned statement following the ruling. “Now that the appellate court has thrown out those injunctions, the circuit court, in a ruling that could have been made at any point during that 16-month stall, has substituted its judgment for that of the Commission and declared invalid a patient-driven Commission rule that was adopted 18 months ago.”
A board member of Alabama Always, which has sought an integrated license and has sued AMCC at least six times over their handling of the licensing process, released a statement blaming the AMCC for how long the litigation has been stuck in court.
“Due to various legal delay tactics filed by the lawyers for the Commission, it took us 15 months to get a hearing and a decision from the Montgomery County Circuit Court. The Court’s Ruling proves once again that the Commission is unwilling or unable to follow the laws of our State,” said Alabama Always Board Member Ben McNeil.
Appellate court said circuit court lacked jurisdiction for TRO
Alabama’s legislature legalized medical cannabis in 2021. By 2023, the AMCC had licensed cultivators and producers. The agency then hit some legal speed bumps when three subsequent attempts to award processor and retail licenses were blocked.
Multiple lawsuits filed by Alabama Always, Jemmstone Alabama and other unsuccessful applicants for integrated licenses challenged the process, resulting in a temporary restraining order in January 2024, which prevented the AMCC from taking any further action on the third round of licensing.
On March 7, 2025 Alabama’s Court of Civil Appeals voided the lower court’s TRO in Alabama Always et. al. v. Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission et. al., based on the reasoning that the circuit court lacked jurisdiction because Alabama Always never asked the AMCC for an administrative hearing to review their denials before filing the lawsuit.
“We conclude that Alabama Always did not have a right to appeal the denial because the denial was not a final decision,” the appellate court ruled.
The appellate court also noted that Alabama Always had alleged in another claim that the AMCC had “failed to follow the scoring, averaging, and ranking rules” based on an emergency rule and sought to have the emergency rule declared invalid. “However, the circuit court did not reference that claim in the TRO, so we do not address it herein.”
The state also brought the Jemmstone case to the appellate level to oppose the TRO. The appellate court unanimously dismissed the appeal in the wake of the March 7 ruling. Basically, one cannot appeal a ruling that is already void.
Since the TRO was not based on every allegation in the underlying lawsuits, the Jemmstone case was sent back to the circuit level where Judge Anderson ruled on the emergency rules, voiding the third round of license awards.
