Public comments given on Alabama medical cannabis regulations

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WSFA) - Cannabis experts had their chance to let state officials know what they think of Alabama’s medical cannabis regulations in a public hearing Thursday.

A good portion of the public comments were just to commend the commission for its work so far, but other comments were also about all parts of the process ranging from seed to sale.

“Today is our day to listen and your day to make comments,” said Dr. Will Webster on the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission.

Webster says any questions from the public should come with a suggested answer the commission can review. Comments included the need for more specific license application criteria.

“Concerned that the evaluation standards and criteria provided right now do not yet provide the level of specificity that would be necessary to guide our viewer into the consistent scoring of applications,” said Jonathan Murphy with Arise Medical.

And public commenter Leah Ladd expressed interest in greenhouses being used for cannabis cultivation.

“Would it be possible to establish separate security requirements just for greenhouses?” Ladd questioned.

Lots of recommendations were also made to benefit patients’ pockets.

Benjamin Bramlett works for a CBD company, and he says testing more cannabis at a time will help reduce the product costs.

clarification: "What I am proposing today is that cannabis of the same cultivar, grown in the same structure under uniform conditions, harvested on the same day would be of acceptable homogeneity to be considered one batch and therefore require one test. That would reduce the financial burden," said Bramlett.

The commission will accept written comments on these rules until Aug. 5.

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