Depositions to come in Alabama Medical Cannabis licensing controversy
Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission Faces Depositions Over License Decisions.
Lawyers for companies denied medical cannabis business licenses are preparing to question members of the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission over how they decided to award licenses.
This comes after Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge James Anderson gave the greenlight for discovery and depositions.
Lawyers for the companies and the Commission are currently coordinating when those depositions will happen.
Alabama Always is one of those companies. It was denied an integrated facility license in all three rounds. That license category was the most sought-after. It allows companies to do everything from seed to sale, as well as operate five dispensaries.
Alabama Always Attorney Will Somerville says the goal of these depositions is to find out how commissioners made their decisions and whether they considered statutory requirements in doing so– like if a company could grow cannabis within 60 days, for example.
He says they plan to question five commissioners and Director John McMillan.
“We think a lot of the applicants they’ve chosen have not been able to satisfy the statutory requirements, so we think the process again needs to be more open, more transparent,” Somerville said.
The court has stayed the issuance of integrated facility and dispensary licenses, while all other categories move forward.
Somerville says they are seeking injunctive relief to stop the issuance of those licenses. It’s one of several possible legal outcomes that Judge Anderson could decide.
“It’s going to be largely dependent on what we find out in our depositions,” Somerville said.
Somerville says lawyers are still working out when the depositions will happen but have proposed Feb. 12 to start the process.
It’s unclear how much this process will delay product availability.
AMCC Communications Director Brittany Peters said in a statement that “unfortunately, medical cannabis products will be unavailable to patients so long as the Court’s current TRO [Temporary Restraining Order] regarding dispensaries is in place.”
