Finally, it appears, some Alabama lawmakers have had enough of the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission and its bungled, absurdly stubborn and obviously failed process for awarding licenses.
At a public hearing on Wednesday before the Alabama Senate’s Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry Committee, Sen. Tim Melson, a medical doctor and the original sponsor of the state’s medical cannabis law, announced a new version of SB72 that will, essentially, bring about a fourth attempt at awarding licenses.
What exactly is in the new bill isn’t clear, since Melson did not have a copy ready for the public hearing. But in a brief overview, he said the bill would start the beleaguered process from scratch, bring in an independent entity (an auditing firm) to handle the application reviews, handle those reviews anonymously for as long as possible, establish an appeals system that doesn’t stall production and increase the number of integrated licenses from five to eight.
He also offered some of the most pointed and harsh criticism to date of the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission and its repeated failures to properly carry out the licensing process.
Melson said he believed the legislature, in its bill creating the medical cannabis licensing process, was clear in its rules but that the AMCC “didn’t follow them.”
How anyone could believe otherwise is a mystery.
The AMCC has admitted twice now that it bungled the process by refusing to follow guidelines set by legislation and by refusing to follow established state laws governing Alabama agencies. A large chunk of the problem has been the scoring processes that the AMCC established to review the applicants. Two different processes were subjective, wildly inconsistent and both failed to follow state laws.
These are not opinions. They’re facts.
The AMCC admitted that its first round of scores, which was handled by supposedly independent scorers recruited by the University of South Alabama, were flawed. So much so that the AMCC volunteered to start the process again. But then, for some mindboggling reason, continued to use those scores in the second go around.
In the third round, it abandoned the scores from the first round and instead implemented a ridiculous system in which each commissioner ranked the applicants 1 through 28. That led to some applicants, including some who received licenses, receiving scores in the top 5, and then a random score from a commissioner outside of the top 15.
That’s a problem because, well, it’s an illegal process under Alabama law, because under such a system a minority of commissioners could cause an applicant to lose out on a license.
And if I might speak for everyone: it’s also really, really dumb. It’s the sort of thing middle school boys would come up with to rank the hottest girls.
It should also be pointed out that we already have a process that an agency is supposed to follow, according to the Alabama Administrative Procedures Act.
And maybe it is the stupidity or the ineptness or the brazen resistance to following basic laws, but after a string of speakers – almost all of whom had received licenses from the AMCC – Melson gave his thoughts, and it’s apparent that he’s had enough.
“If you look at the ratings by the commission members, some of them were rated in the top 2, except for some of them rated them like 28th, or 16th or 18th,” Melson said. “I’m not saying it was a factor or not (in some applicants receiving a license), but I’m just saying that if they got it right, it was a fluke. Because some individuals did not know how to score them or they were just incompetent scoring or they had a mission or a point to prove. I’m not saying we couldn’t live with it – I’m sure these folks are happy because they got (a license), but if I was in the top 15 and didn’t get one, I would tie you up in court until hell froze over.”
Consider what Melson is saying here. Because when you do, you know he’s right.
For whatever reason – as Melson stated, incompetence, a predetermined mission, retribution, something – the AMCC has flat out refused time and time again to follow basic Alabama laws. At one point, this commission, with a former circuit court judge on it, tried to go into executive session to debate and award the licenses – all of which is the very definition of violating the state’s open meetings law.
It has been a too-weird process from the start and all the way through. Made only weirder by the fact that the commission has fought tooth and nail to not follow the law and keep in place problematic scores that they admitted were flawed.
It’s so bad that the guy who was behind this entire process now wants to simply remove the AMCC from, at least, the early stages of the selection process in an effort to make sure it’s fair to everyone. That should prompt a whole bunch of people to ask just what in the world is going on here.
Melson’s legislation, assuming it’s what he says it is, isn’t perfect, and I don’t care for the fact that it alters the AAPA process for licensing hearings, but it seems to be a positive step towards addressing the real problems that have plagued this process.
At the very least, it should hopefully start us moving, after four long years, towards an actual resolution and marijuana finally going out to folks who so desperately need it.
