MONTGOMERY — The issuance of medical cannabis licenses to applicants in Alabama is on pause for second time as legal challenges continue.

The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission voted Aug. 31, to impose another stay on the issuance of licenses that have been awarded since June.

AMCC counsel Will Webster said the stay is in accordance with a previous judicial hearing and will allow all parties to resolve issues prior to resuming the licensing process.

“Since we have had some (applicants) who have requested investigative hearings, it’s appropriate that we should be able to do that,” Webster said. “And this will also allow us to enter into discussions with litigating applicants’ counsel, as the judge has asked, and then to hold another meeting that we hope will be able to take place on September the 19th to award licenses.”

With the stay in place, licenses that were planned to be issued on Sept. 7, will not be issued, and those licensees announced Aug. 10, have no current obligation to pay license fees. Applicants who were denied award of license on Aug. 10, have no current obligation to submit a request for investigative hearing.

The initial round of licenses were announced June 12, when the AMCC voted to award 21 medical cannabis business licenses among 90 applicants.

Per statute, the commission could award up to 12 cultivator licenses, four processor licenses, four dispensary licenses, five integrated facility licenses and an unspecified number of secure transport and state testing laboratory licenses.

Shortly after, several losing applicants filed lawsuits alleging the commission failed to use its own judgment in choosing licenses. Lawsuits also allege inconsistent scoring of applications.

Four days after announcing the license awards, the commission imposed a stay on those licenses, stating they became aware of potential inconsistencies in scoring applications.

At an Aug. 10 meeting, Kristin Roberts, chief financial officer for the University of South Alabama, said USA accountants and independent accountants from KPMG — a global network of firms providing audit, tax and advisory services — compared the recalculated scores to those previously submitted to the commission to check for variances.

Licenses were re-issued Aug. 10, by the commission based on the updated review.

The stay on those licenses will remain in effect until it is lifted by the commission, which has a regular meeting scheduled for Sept. 19.

A court hearing is scheduled for Sept. 6, to address the commission’s alleged violation of the Alabama Open Meetings Act. The commission is accused of violating the act by nominating their preferred applicants behind closed doors in an executive session Aug. 10.

“The commission has a singular goal of ensuring that medical cannabis products reach patients in need of them. The commission’s action today, while pausing the process, furthers that goal by attempting to avoid additional legal challenges,” said AMCC Chairman Rex Vaughn. “We understand that litigation is an obstacle just as it has been in every other state that has a medical cannabis program. However, we appreciate and join in the court’s commitment to seeing that Alabama’s program becomes operational sooner rather than later.”

Wagon Trail Hemp Farms is one of 38 applicants vying for one of the five integrated facility licenses and is not among applicants who filed lawsuits.

Joey Robertson, a managing partner for Wagon Trail, said the rescoring and review of the applications after the initial award announcement helped move Wagon Trail up to next-in-line to the top five for applicants in the integrated facility category.

However, the challenge with the licensing process, he said, is determining whether the scoring process is fair since applicants can’t see the scoring of other applications.

“You’ll see several companies saying it’s hard for us to appeal or go through the appeal process when we don’t even know how we were scored against other competitors,” Roberston said. “We have our scoring breakdown, and I’m still not 100 percent on board with that. There’s some discrepancies that we need explanations on as well there. But I think we’re probably in line with several other groups on some of those questions.”

Robertson remains optimistic that the additional time the commission has during the stay will allow them to resolve and review further errors or discrepancies.

In 2021, Alabama became the 37th state to legalize medical marijuana, allowing certain illnesses and conditions to be treated with the medication through pill form, capsules, creams, oil, etc. Most patients will be allowed up to 50 mg of legal cannabis per day and after a few months a physician would be able to increase the dosage if necessary. THC is the main ingredient for cannabis.

Georgia ran into similar legal issues in its years-long effort to rollout medical marijuana.

The 2019 law creating the Georgia Access to Medical Cannabis Commission only allowed the commission to issue six licenses.

In 2021, the commission issued two Class I licenses and four tentative Class II licenses for medical marijuana after scoring more than 70 applicants. However, the Class II licenses are still on hold due to lawsuits from nine applicants that weren’t awarded licenses.

The lawsuits allege unfair and inconsistent scoring by the commission, whose records and documents aren’t subject to open records.

However, Georgia’s first medical cannabis dispensary under its Class I licensed facility — which allows growing, cultivating and manufacturing THC oil in an indoor space no more than 100,000 square feet — opened late April.