Cannabis gets green light – South Alabamian
Wednesday, December 24, 2025
State awards first medical marijuana dispensary licenses
After more than four years of delays, lawsuits and false starts, the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission voted on Dec. 11 to award the state’s first medical marijuana dispensary licenses, clearing the biggest and most pressing roadblock between patients and a functioning program.
The commission issued the state’s first four dispensary licenses needed before doctors can be certified and patients can legally purchase medical cannabis products.
Following a recommended order from an administrative law judge, commissioners approved dispensary licenses for GP6 Wellness LLC, RJK Holdings LLC and CCS of Alabama LLC.
A fourth license for Yellowhammer Medical Dispensaries LLC was also granted but stayed until a Jan. 26 hearing, meaning it won’t become active until after that date.
Qualified patients can begin receiving medical cannabis as early as spring 2026, according to AMCC Chairman Rex Vaughan, who described how close Alabama already is to having product ready — but stuck in storage while the licensing fight dragged on.
“We’ve got about four cultivators who in the process of growing and they have a product staged and ready, so we’re on the cusp of getting that product to the fight to the finish line,” Vaughan said. “We’ve got a skeleton crew and they’re acting as inspectors and investigators and auditors and compliance issues and all that.”
Under state rules, each dispensary license holder can eventually operate up to three storefronts.
The vote removed the most foundational legal roadblock that has kept Alabama’s program on paper. The Alabama Board of Medical Examiners cannot issue medical cannabis certification permits to physicians until the AMCC has issued at least one license each to a cultivator, a processor, a secure transporter and a dispensary or a single integrated “seed-to-sale” company.
Licenses in the other categories were issued years earlier in some cases; dispensaries were the missing piece.
Once the new licenses take effect on Jan. 8, the state can begin certifying doctors, enrolling patients in a registry and, for the first time, legally selling medical cannabis products in Alabama.
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