Hearings to help determine what companies can dispense medical marijuana in Alabama will be a step forward for the state’s long-delayed program, a lawyer involved in the process said Wednesday.

Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission General Counsel Justin Aday said legal challenges remain but that the AMCC could resolve a key issue by finally issuing licenses to dispensaries.

The AMCC is preparing to have an administrative law judge hold investigative hearings for the companies competing for the limited number of dispensary licenses.

“I guess after being stalled for two years now, it may be difficult to describe it as anything but a breakthrough,” Aday said.

The Legislature authorized medical marijuana four years ago and created the AMCC to license growers, processors, transporters, and dispensaries, as well as integrated companies that will do it all.

The AMCC began awarding licenses two years ago, but lawsuits filed by competing companies and missteps by the commission have prevented any products from reaching patients.

The AMCC has successfully issued licenses for cultivators, processors, transporters, and testing labs.

See more: Medical marijuana plants growing in Alabama under careful conditions, tight security

Licenses for dispensaries and for integrated companies have been tied up in court since the AMCC awarded them in December 2023.

Aday said rulings by the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals and the Montgomery County Circuit Court have opened the door for the investigative hearings.

“In summary, in the dispensary category, the trial court stayed its own proceedings in favor of investigative hearings taking place,” Aday said.

An administrative law judge who presided over the hearings for the cultivator, processor, and transporter licenses will conduct the dispensary license hearings, Aday said.

Issuance of a dispensary license would clear the way for the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners to certify doctors who will be authorized to recommend medical cannabis to patients.

“They won’t issue any certification to any physician to recommend medical cannabis until at least one license has been issued to a cultivator, a processor, a transporter, and a dispensary,” Aday said. “Or at least one license has been issued to at least one integrated facility.”

“So once either a dispensary license has been issued or an integrated facility license has been issued, then that’s the condition that’s needed for the Board of Medical Examiners to certify physicians, which in turn can certify patients, which it turn can go and purchase products.”

The AMCC is also planning investigative hearings in the integrated license category, which involves the largest companies and which has been the subject of the most litigation.

Aday said the AMCC is planning to hire former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Bernard Harwood to serve as administrative law judge over the integrated license hearings.

Aday cautioned that the legal delays that have frustrated patients and advocates for two years are not over.

“We do still have pending litigation with the circuit court and the court of appeals. So, there are still issues to be resolved,” Aday said.

“And so some might argue, isn’t this premature to undertake this with things still pending in the courts?

“But our position is there’s no injunction that’s preventing this. And patients that are out there in need, they don’t deserve us to be dragging our feet and delaying this process any further.”

On Tuesday, during a brief Zoom meeting, the AMCC awarded a testing lab license to Green Health Lab LLC.

Green Health becomes the second licensed testing lab. The AMCC previously awarded a license to Certus Laboratories.

The Alabama law passed in 2021, called the Compassion Act, allows companies to make gummies, tablets, capsules, tinctures, patches, oils, and other forms of medical marijuana products.

Patients who receive a medical cannabis card will be able to buy them at licensed dispensaries.

The law allows certified doctors to recommend the products for a wide range of conditions, including chronic pain, weight loss and nausea from cancer, depression, panic disorder, epilepsy, muscle spasms caused by disease or spinal cord injuries, PTSD, and others.