{"id":85853,"date":"2026-04-22T05:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T13:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/alabama-medical-marijuana-sales-set-to-finally-begin-next-month-five-years-after-lawmakers-approved-legalization\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T19:46:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T03:46:33","slug":"alabama-medical-marijuana-sales-set-to-finally-begin-next-month-five-years-after-lawmakers-approved-legalization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/alabama-medical-marijuana-sales-set-to-finally-begin-next-month-five-years-after-lawmakers-approved-legalization\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama Medical Marijuana Sales Set To Finally Begin Next Month, Five Years After Lawmakers Approved Legalization"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this means for Alabama is patients will be getting the much-needed medicine they need. We\u2019ve had the program now for five years, [and] there\u2019s been a crazy delay.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By Anna Barrett, Alabama Reflector<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nearly five years after the Alabama Legislature approved a medical cannabis program<\/a> in the state, the weeks-long process of producing and testing products for patients has begun, setting up an early May availability for patients.<\/p>\n

Antoine Mordican, CEO of Native Black Cultivation, said in a phone interview Tuesday that he sent the first biomass, or cannabis flour, to Homestead Health, a processor, on April 10. Mordican grows and harvests medical marijuana on his farm in Bessemer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlabama doesn\u2019t allow anything smokable, so no flour, no vape. If you have to add heat to it, the state of Alabama don\u2019t allow it,\u201d Mordican said.<\/p>\n

Once the state\u2019s medical cannabis program is fully operational with all its dispensaries open<\/a>, Mordican said he will distribute biomass to all processors who are granted licenses by the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC). The processors take the biomass and extract the THC oil, then produce the approved products with the oil.<\/p>\n

Products are restricted to tablets, tinctures, patches, oils and gummies (only peach flavor), with raw plant material and smokable forms remaining prohibited.<\/p>\n

Tyler Robinson, owner and CEO of Homestead Health, previously Jasper Development Group, Inc., said in a phone interview Tuesday that the product production and testing process takes about two to three weeks before products are delivered to dispensaries.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce it comes back as a pass, we will start making it into a final product formulation,\u201d Robinson said. \u201cOnce it\u2019s in the final product formulation, we\u2019ll send it back to testing.\u201d<\/p>\n

It takes that long, he said, because the product is tested several times during the process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might take a little longer than what people might expect, but you want to make sure that you\u2019re going to market with a quality product that passes all the necessary requirements,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Robinson said he is aiming to have products delivered to dispensaries by May 4, but a more likely goal is May 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the conversations we\u2019ve had, we still believe early May. But we don\u2019t know the timelines for how long once it goes from a cultivator to a processor, how much time that\u2019s gonna take,\u201d said John McMillan, executive director of the AMCC, in a phone interview Tuesday. \u201cWe don\u2019t control that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vince Schilleci, owner of dispensary Callie\u2019s Apothecary, which plans to open a location in Montgomery, said in a phone interview Tuesday afternoon that Callie\u2019s will open in mid-May.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re happy that we can put the patients first at this point. We\u2019re almost there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Justin Aday, general counsel for the AMCC, said in a March interview that biomass is tested before it is delivered to the processor, multiple times at the processor, and one final time before it is delivered to a dispensary.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the seed to the sale is tracked in our seed-to-sell tracking system,\u201d Aday said in March. \u201cIf you have a product that you purchased off of the shelf at a dispensary, we can tell you where that product came from and all the stops related to it along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Litigation has held up access to medical cannabis<\/a>. Some firms sued the commission for not being awarded a license, citing a discriminatory process. Another case involved five parents that sued the commission over delays in access to cannabis. The lawsuit was dismissed in August.<\/p>\n

Robinson said that the litigation has hurt patients more than anybody, even though cultivators and processors like him have been working since they were awarded licenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen litigation arises, the payroll and the bills don\u2019t stop coming,\u201d he said. \u201cUltimately, it\u2019s the patients that have hurt the worst in all of this. It\u2019s just unfortunate because we\u2019re doing all we can on our end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson encouraged patients to educate themselves on what conditions qualify for cannabis treatment and how to get it.<\/p>\n

Physicians will not prescribe medical cannabis. Instead, they will recommend a product they believe will work for a patient with a qualifying condition, including cancer, depression, Parkinson\u2019s Disease, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), sickle-cell anemia, chronic pain and terminal diseases. Each qualifying patient will have to register with the commission in order to get a recommendation from a physician and to receive a cannabis product from a dispensary.<\/p>\n

As of Tuesday, there were 43 physicians certified to recommend medical cannabis to patients in Alabama, according to the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat this means for Alabama is patients will be getting the much needed medicine they need. We\u2019ve had the program now for five years, there\u2019s been a crazy delay and we\u2019re just now getting to this point. We\u2019ve been caught up in litigation, lawsuits, things like that,\u201d Mordican said. \u201cBut now that we have everything we need, we can start to service the people of Alabama.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dispensary Locations:<\/strong><\/p>\n