Three months have passed since the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission was first scheduled to issue licenses to businesses to begin the work of getting products to patients.

Missteps and lawsuits have stalled the process.

Companies the AMCC did not pick for licenses have filed lawsuits, citing flaws in the process. Companies the AMCC did select are asking the court to make the AMCC stick with its choices and issue the licenses.

New developments are coming this week.

On Tuesday, Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson will hold a hearing in the consolidated lawsuits filed against the AMCC.

On Thursday, the AMCC is scheduled to meet. According to a draft agenda, the AMCC will consider changing rules on license application evaluations and other parts of the process.

Meanwhile, a former lawmaker who for years championed the legislation to make medical marijuana available said patients have waited long enough. Former Rep. Mike Ball of Madison is urging the AMCC to go ahead and issue the licenses.

“I know the process hasn’t been perfect,” Ball said. “I don’t think there’s any such thing as a perfect bureaucracy and a perfect bureaucratic process. But you take what you got, you do the best you can with it. And I think the commission has tried to do the best they can overall. And they just need to pull the ripcord.

“When I was in the Marine Corps, I jumped out of airplanes. You’ve got to take that first step. And it’s time for them to start issuing licenses and get this thing going.”

Related: Long wait drags on for patients in Alabama as medical cannabis hits snags

Ball, a former state trooper and investigator, was the House sponsor of the bill that lawmakers passed in 2021 to authorize medical marijuana. The law, also sponsored by Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence, set up a fully intrastate industry, with the AMCC to license the companies that will cultivate the plants, make the gummies and other products, and sell them in dispensaries to patients who have received a medical cannabis card from a qualified doctor.

More than 30 other states have legalized medical cannabis. But Ball said that does not help the patients in Alabama. The law does not allow Alabama residents to obtain the medication in other states and bring it back to Alabama.

“Most people who enforce the law do have common sense, but there are some that don’t,” Ball said. “And those people that don’t will cause people who probably shouldn’t be prosecuted for a crime to get prosecuted.”

The delays started in June when the AMCC awarded 21 licenses to companies to cultivate, process, transfer, test, and dispense medical cannabis products. The licenses were to be issued in July after site inspections and other due diligence. But the AMCC withdrew those decisions after discovering mistakes in the tabulation of scores used to rank the applicants.

In August, the AMCC announced the mistakes were corrected and the scores were verified. It awarded licenses a second time, picking 24 companies, including 19 that had been chosen in June plus five more.

But the process hit another snag. Some companies that did not receive licenses filed lawsuits claiming the commission violated the state Open Meetings Act, among other claims. Montgomery County Circuit Judge Anderson issued an order putting the process on hold to allow lawyers for the companies and the AMCC to negotiate.

Alabama Always, a Montgomery-based company that says it has spent $7 million building a facility to grow and process medical cannabis, last week amended its lawsuit against the AMCC, first filed in June. Alabama Always is asking the court to declare invalid the AMCC’s rules and application scoring system and require the AMCC to adopt new rules. Alabama Always applied for but was not awarded an integrated license, which allows companies to cultivate, process, transport, and dispense medical cannabis.

A company that was picked for an integrated license has asked the court to do the opposite.

Southeast Cannabis Company, based in Mobile County, was awarded an integrated license in June and again in August. But because of the scoring problems and the lawsuits, the AMCC has not issued a license to Southeast Cannabis Company or any other company. Southeast Cannabis says it paid the $50,000 license fee in June.

In its lawsuit filed Oct. 4, Southeast Cannabis said the AMCC has no legal authority to rescind the license decisions it made in June and August. It asked the court to order the AMCC to issue its license. And it opposes the request by Alabama Always that would require the AMCC to restart the application process with new rules.

“The Commission and this court should reject efforts by slighted applicants to reconfigure the entire process at this juncture,” the lawsuit says.

Before the licensing process bogged down over the summer, AMCC officials said they expected products to be available late this year or early next year.

Products can include gummies, tablets, capsules, tinctures, patches, oils, and other forms allowed by the legislation. Patients who receive a medical cannabis card from a doctor will be able to buy the products at licensed dispensaries.

The products can be used to treat a wide range of conditions, including chronic pain, weight loss and nausea from cancer, depression, panic disorder, epilepsy, muscle spasms caused by disease or spinal cord injuries, PTSD, and others.

Ball said the Legislature can make some revisions to the program if necessary, but that issuing licenses and getting the medication to patients should come first.

“The commission needs to go ahead and issue the licenses as expeditiously as they can,” Ball said. “Because people are suffering and people are desperate.”