All 90 applicants for commercial medical cannabis licenses are back in the running after the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) Thursday reset the licensing process. The AMCC rescinded all awarded licenses and denials from an August 10 meeting, setting the stage for a third round of license grants under rules adopted at a commission meeting on October 12.
“We decided to start all over as far as the award,” said Rex Vaughn, the chair of the AMCC, after the meeting. “It doesn’t matter if [uncontested in court] or not, they’ll all be taken into consideration after the presentations.” The new procedures will allow commissioners to use the previous scores to decide on awards, but Vaughn, speaking from a prepared statement during the meeting Thursday, repeatedly stated the commissioners had full discretion “when evaluating the suitability of all 90 applicants.”
The new rules also give applicants an opportunity to contest deficiencies identified in their application and their score results. Presentations will be open to the public. Applicants can also respond to preliminary pass/fail and submit application materials that were not previously filed due to the file size limitation.
Will Somerville, an attorney representing Alabama Always, a company that has sued the commission after being denied licenses in previous rounds, sent a letter to the commission Wednesday urging it to throw out the scores provided by the University of South Alabama earlier this year.
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