Nearly five years after Alabama legalized medical cannabis, patients still cannot access treatment — not because the law is unclear, but because the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission has simply failed to do its job.

Now, a group of frustrated Alabama parents is taking the Commission to court.

In a lawsuit filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, five parents — Dustin Chandler, Cristina Cain, Catherine Hall, Meggan Jackson and Kari Forsyth — are seeking a writ of mandamus to force the commissioners to establish the patient and caregiver registry that state law required them to create by Sept. 1, 2022.

Their argument is straightforward: the Darren Wesley “Ato” Hall Compassion Act, signed into law in 2021, mandated the creation of an integrated electronic system to track qualified patients and caregivers. The law gave the Commission no discretion — it used mandatory language, requiring action by a specific deadline. Yet today, the Commission’s own website states that Alabama is “not registering patients or caregivers at this time.”

“The Commissioners have failed to perform their nondiscretionary, ministerial duty,” the petition states. “Mandamus is the only adequate remedy available.”

The lawsuit asserts that without a registry — the legal foundation for the entire program — there can be no lawful dispensing of medical cannabis in Alabama. It also highlights broader dysfunction at the AMCC, citing alleged violations of the Alabama Open Meetings Act and the Alabama Administrative Procedure Act, violations that have already triggered multiple lawsuits and delayed the program’s rollout.

“There can be no medical cannabis in Alabama without a patient registry that has actual patients,” the lawsuit argues.

Despite mounting legal setbacks, AMCC Director John McMillan continues to defend the Commission’s work. Following a recent Montgomery County Circuit Court ruling that found the Commission had violated state law and must redo parts of its licensing process, McMillan told WVTM 13 that the Commission had done everything required of it.

“We’ve done everything the legislation required the commission to do to be ready to start the program, including a patient registry, the seed, the sale and tracking program,” McMillan said. “All of these things cost money, too, because we had to enter a contract with Tarleton [State University] to do that work. The doctors are ready to go. Everybody’s ready to go — except we just can’t get through this continuing litigation that comes up at every turn.”

But McMillan’s claims stand in stark contrast to the facts. There is no functioning registry. Patients cannot legally register, and the courts have already ruled that the Commission failed to follow the law.

The plaintiffs argue that it is the Commission’s repeated violations of law — not opportunistic litigation — that have left families with no access to critical medical treatments.

In their petition, the parents stress they are not merely pursuing abstract legal principles. They are seeking immediate action to end the unlawful delay and vindicate both the public’s rights under the Compassion Act and their own children’s urgent medical needs. They contend they have a clear legal right to relief, and that mandamus is the only means to enforce it.

If the court grants the writ of mandamus, the Commissioners would be legally compelled to establish the patient and caregiver registry without further delay — unlocking a program that has been trapped in bureaucratic and legal gridlock since its creation.

For now, families wait. Not for new laws. Not for complex regulatory review. But for the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission to simply follow the law they were entrusted to carry out.