As the medical and adult-use cannabis markets continue to grow across the country, licensing procedures have often been met with some resistance and contention as professionals fight to get their stake in the industry. For one Alabama cannabis producer, the most recent licensing round resulted in a suit against the state.
Last week, the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) began to hear from lower tier license applicants. Enchanted Green LLC had missed the cut for a vote to award processor licenses, even though they were awarded licenses in previous rounds. According to Alabama Political Reporter, the company had placed second in previous rounds of the AMCC’s scoring, though in this most recent round, the commission decided that Enchanted Green had tied for fourth—and there were only four licenses available by statute.
In the motion for injunctive relief filed Monday, Enchanted Green said that AMCC had decided to break the tie by drawing an applicant’s name from a bowl to determine which company would receive first consideration.
According to the motion, an AMCC staff member reached under the dais, pulled out a bowl, held it out to an AMCC commissioner, who looked into the bowl and pulled out a piece of paper — which they allegedly didn’t appear to unfold.
“The commissioner then read from the paper the name of the other processor group that tied for fourth place,” the company wrote. “There was no evidence that both names … were actually in the bowl prior to the ‘drawing,’ that the pieces of paper were folded so the commissioner could not see which one he was picking (or the name on it), that the papers (if there were in fact two pieces of paper) were of the same size and weight, or that other paraments of a fair drawing were followed.”
Enchanted Green also said that there was a clear confusion around commission members surrounding the tiebreaker process, though they opted to move ahead with the procedure anyway. The complaint also speculates that the thousand-page applications submitted by companies may not have even been considered. Rather, they suggest that commissioners may have primarily based votes around the presentations companies made over the week.
The complaint explains that the commissioners discussed the awardees and rationale for the award during each vote, and while applications were often more than 1,000 pages long, “it was unclear that the AMCC commissioners evaluated the applications after the ‘scores’ were barred from consideration. The applications were not mentioned by the commissioners as part of their decisions rather the commissioners identified the presentations as the rationale for their awards.”
Enchanted Green also explained that the commission awarded the company a license for the second time, which they paid the $40,000 licensing fee for, though they still don’t actually have a license when all is said and done.
“The Commission is awarding enormously valuable licenses and is doing so in a way that openly and egregiously violated Plaintiff’s due process rights,” Enchanted Green said in the complaint.
This litigation could be troublesome for the AMCC, as this case is just the most recent in a series of long-running legal battles involving the commission. In November, a group of cannabis companies sued the commission, challenging a lower court’s decision to allow the commission to continue using rules and requirements that allegedly violate the Alabama Administrative Procedures Act.
Namely, the appeal suggests that the AMCC scoring system is “improper” and “exceeds the commission’s authority,” adding that the commission should be barred from using the scoring system to award licenses.
Next week, the AMCC is also set to award licenses for integrated facilities, with 28 applicants fighting for only five licenses, which holds the potential to create even more contention against the commission.
