It takes a big person to admit when they are wrong. But I’ll raise my hand and say I was wrong when I predicted that the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals would rule in favor of the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission in late March or early April. That prediction was at least two weeks early, and I owe it to our handful of readers to own up to that mistake.

The Opinion

Last Friday, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals ruled that the Montgomery County Circuit Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the complaints of Alabama Always – an applicant for a medical cannabis license that has not been awarded a license during any of the three rounds of awards – because Alabama Always (and, presumably by extension, any other disappointed applicant for an integrated facility license) had not exhausted its administrative remedies before filing suit. As a result, the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals instructed the circuit court to lift the injunction prohibiting the AMCC from issuing integrated licenses.

Because the court concluded that the circuit court did not have jurisdiction to hear Alabama Always’ claims, the court expressly declined to issue a holding as to whether the circuit court abused its discretion in various ways in entering the injunction. While as a general matter of judicial philosophy, I believe that the appellate court’s decision to resolve the case on jurisdictional grounds and not offer what would amount to dicta on other issues, the court’s decision to do so leaves open the possibility that Alabama Always and other disappointed applicants could seek additional relief on those grounds.

Why the Court of Civil Appeals’ Opinion Should Matter

I would be lying to you if I told you this decision was the definitive ruling that will allow integrated licenses to be issued in short order. I strongly suspect there will be requests for injunctive relief on separate grounds as soon as the current injunction is lifted.

Having said that, I attended the oral argument, which totaled three hours – the longest I have personally witnessed – and I am confident that the Court of Civil Appeals would treat any effort to re-raise the issues raised in the arguments with similar thoughtful dismissiveness. There is absolutely nothing in the opinion – nor was there anything at oral argument – to suggest that the court will offer the type of relief sought by the disappointed applicants. In fact, there is every reason to believe otherwise.

Instead, I believe the appellate court’s opinion should (1) put an end to serious discussions of legislative intervention in the program and (2) motivate the trial court to move more quickly to dispose of the serial challenges being brought by disappointed applicants.

I’d be remiss not to offer this word of caution. There’s a great line in Mad Men when Don Draper, having been challenged by Conrad Hilton to make a pitch for the global Hilton advertising portfolio, responds: “There are snakes that go months without eating and then they finally catch something, but they’re so hungry that they suffocate while they’re eating. One step at a time.”

Friday was a big win for the AMCC, as the consequences for losing may have been existential. I would caution supporters of the opinion not to overstate the holding, which was expressly limited to jurisdiction, but to instead point to the substance and tone of the questions at oral argument and the language in the opinion strongly suggesting that further challenges along similar lines would receive an equally unwelcome reception.

Conclusion

I’ve used this one before and I hate to recycle content, but I will break tradition when it is on point and involves Tom Hanks and the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman, at the conclusion of Charlie Wilson’s War. 

As Hanks’ character celebrates the Afghan defeat of the Soviets, the hardened CIA analyst played by Hoffman offers this parable:

On his sixteenth birthday the boy gets a horse as a present. All of the people in the village say, “Oh, how wonderful!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

One day, the boy is riding and gets thrown off the horse and hurts his leg. He’s no longer able to walk, so all of the villagers say, “How terrible!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

Some time passes and the village goes to war. All of the other young men get sent off to fight, but this boy can’t fight because his leg is messed up. All of the villagers say, “How wonderful!”

The Zen master says, “We’ll see.”

Last week’s decision was a win for the AMCC and possibly for those seeking an efficient resolution to the years-long delay in launching Alabama’s medical cannabis program. But we’ll see. There are miles to go before we sleep. 

And before I sleep, I’ll say a prayer that all involved will proceed with only the best of intentions and in furtherance of Alabama’s goal of getting medicine into the hands of people who need it.

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