Over the past nearly two years, I have been talking to friends, clients, and basically anyone at parties about the slow progress (if I might be permitted to use that word in this context) of the Alabama medical cannabis program. Those conversations have afforded me the opportunity to examine a series of how the great thinkers of the past have dealt with delays that beset the very things that they have spent years dealing with. In the event any of our award-winning readers of Budding Trends have found themselves in a similar situation, I’ll offer a couple of my favorites:

• Confucius said that “[i]t does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”
• The British politician Walter Elliot said that “[p]erseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after the other.”

If you had the opportunity to observe the nearly two-hour hearing in the Montgomery County Circuit Court where all pending cannabis motions were discussed, you could be forgiven for assuming that Alabamians are no closer today to accessing medical cannabis than they were when the hearing began. But, contrary to my nature, I took away a more optimistic view. Specifically, I believe the court and the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission may be on the verge of giving the go ahead to medical cannabis dispensaries, which would also allow for Alabamians to begin the process of being certified to obtain medical cannabis.

I don’t have a crystal ball. There are plenty of lawyers, lobbyists, and consultants in Montgomery who will tell you that they know what is going to happen, and many of them have made a tidy sum promising access and results. As much as I wish I could predict the future, I can’t. But for the first time in months, I see both (1) a potential path forward for allowing the medical cannabis program to get started and (2) a court and AMCC that appear willing to make that happen.

During the latest hearing, the court for perhaps the first time in 18 months seemed willing to treat dispensary applicants differently than integrated facility applicants. Specifically, the court seemed open to the idea of considering allowing the dispensary applicants to begin the administrative investigative hearings that could lead to the AMCC issuing dispensary licenses. If that happens, two things immediately spring into effect: (1) physicians can begin obtaining permission to certify patients who qualify for medical cannabis and patients can begin being certified for medical cannabis, and (2) cultivators and processors will have a place to sell medical cannabis to dispensaries that can in turn provide that medicine to qualifying patients. That would be an enormous development that would finally see the program getting under way.

This outcome, however, is far from certain. Integrated facility applicants are likely to strongly oppose any effort that would give dispensary licensees an opportunity to start operating while the integrated facility applicants (which also would have the right to operate dispensaries) are stuck in litigation. This could mean that integrated facility applicants are able to persuade the court and the AMCC not to issue any dispensary licenses at this time. It could also mean that integrated facility applicants see the writing on the wall and agree to conduct their own investigative hearings so that they too can begin operating close in time to dispensary clients.

We’ll know more in the next few weeks. In the meantime, as I see the willingness of the court and the AMCC to make meaningful progress for the first time in quite some time, I can’t help but think of the soulful lyrics of the great Lowell George on the topic of “weed”:

Well, I’ve been kicked by the wind, robbed by the sleet
Had my head stoved in, but I’m still on my feet
And I’m still willin’.