MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission re-awarded licenses Thursday for the exclusive right to grow and distribute medical marijuana to 24 companies, the list of which differed slightly from the 21 chosen back in June before the discovery of issues with the selection process.
While many companies were unhappy with the process, as were some commission members, licenses are scheduled to be issued to the 24 companies on Sept. 7. They will become the first legal producers and distributors of medical marijuana in the state. Companies that were not selected will have until Aug. 24 to request an investigative hearing as to why they were not chosen.
The commission awarded licenses in six categories:
*Company names with a strikethrough indicate they were selected in June but not awarded licenses on Aug. 10, whereas an * indicates a new company awarded a license
Cultivation Licenses
- Blackberry Farms
- Gulf Shore Remedies
- Pure by Sirmon Farms
- Twisted Herb Cultivation
- *I Am Farms
- *Greenway Botanicals
- *CRC of Alabama
Processor Licenses
Dispensary Licenses
Secure Transporter Licenses
State Testing Laboratory License
Integrated Facility Licenses
- Flowerwood Medical Cannabis
- Southeast Cannabis Company
- Sustainable Alabama
- TheraTrue Alabama
Verano Alabama- *Insa Alabama
Licenses were first awarded to the 21 companies on June 13 based on scoring data put together by the University of South Alabama. Just days later, however, before the companies were issued said licenses, the AMCC voted to halt the process after discovering inconsistencies in the tabulation of scoring data.
Another wrench was thrown into the process when in late July, AMCC Chairman Steve Stokes was sued, with the plaintiff alleging Stokes was not eligible to head the committee given that he was also a member of the University of Southern Alabama Board of Trustees. While he first intended to fight the allegation, Stokes later – out of a wish to not delay the process further – resigned from the commission.
Stokes’ absence was the first matter dealt with by the commission on Thursday. Former commission Vice Chair Rex Vaughn was selected chairman and Sam Blakemore to vice chairman.
“I will say, Dr. Stokes will be surely missed; his insight and his intimate involvement with medical cannabis has been instrumental in getting us to this point,” Vaughn said. “His leadership and guidance has been tremendous; I can’t say enough about his efforts.”
The commission first agreed to both lift the self-imposed stay on the issuance of licenses, as well as to void the previous license awards. Later, the commission heard a presentation from USA staff outlining what went wrong in the initial tabulation of scoring data.
Lynne Chronister, vice president for research and economic development at USA, explained that sometime in June, a variance in scoring calculations were discovered, attributing them to “human errors.” Two “high-level accountants” with USA were then tasked with recalculating the scores for the more than 90 applicants, which included 10,700 data points and 15,000 calculations to determine the final scores.
According to Chronister, the accountants independently verified the inconsistent scoring data, as did a third party auditor, KPMG, LLC. One of the errors was later determined to be caused by one evaluator duplicating their score for one of the applicants for an integrated facilities license, which caused a “trickle-down effect” on the calculator of score averages. Another was an error with data entry, in which some data “was applied to the incorrect applicant” or “not applied at all.”
Following the commission’s announcement of the license awards, Vaughn urged those who were not selected to not “lose heart; I think there may be another day.”
Ultimately, the commission awarded licenses to five new companies when compared to its selection back in June, whereas two companies – Alabama Secure Transport and Verano Alabama – were not awarded a license Thursday after being selected in June. Additional cultivation licenses were added because there is no limit on those in the state whereas others are capped.
“There were a few changes, and we knew that was probably going to come because we knew ahead of time, based on the missed scoring, that there were some off base,” Vaughn told the press on the different outcome when compared to June. “But we’re happy with where we are now.”
When asked how soon Alabamians can expect medical marijuana to reach the hands of patients, Vaughn was cautiously optimistic that it could be just a matter of months.
“You’re talking about a two-to-three month turnaround from the seedling stage to a plant that can be harvested for a product,” he said.
“The processing part of it, from what I’ve been made aware of, is pretty short and quick, so we still have a hope that we get to this point before the end of the year with a final product, and I still think that we can. That’s our intent; hopefully before we see 2024, we will have something available that’s coming out in the dispensaries across our state.”