The legal arguments and Latin phrases voiced in a Montgomery courtroom on Monday afternoon were hard to understand, but the bottom line was not: Alabama’s medical marijuana program will be bogged down in court for at least another month.

More than 25 lawyers were in Montgomery County Circuit Court and about half of them took part in the arguments before Judge James Anderson during a hearing that lasted more than an hour.

It was the latest round of talks in the litigation that started last summer when the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission began trying to issue licenses to the companies that will make and sell the products authorized when the Legislature passed a medical marijuana bill three years ago.

The AMCC has issued licenses to cultivators, processors, secure transporters, and a state testing lab. But licenses in two categories have stalled after litigation and problems with the AMCC’s procedures. Those are for dispensaries, which would sell the products, and integrated companies, which would cultivate, process, transport, and dispense the products.

More than a dozen companies are involved in the lawsuits, many of which have been consolidated.

On Monday, lawyers for the AMCC filed a new motion asking the judge to dismiss the cases for multiple reasons, describing the claims as “desperate efforts” by the unsuccessful applicants. One reason for dismissal cited by the AMCC is a claim that the courts have no jurisdiction until the denied applicants exhaust their administrative remedies, which include a request for an investigative hearing before the AMCC.

The AMCC also claims some of the lawsuits are “void ab initio,” or void from the beginning, because they listed the AMCC as defendants and not the individual members of the commission in their official capacity. The AMCC claims the agency is immune and the lawsuits had to specifically name the commissioners. Lawyers for the companies say that’s a technicality and that commissioners are clearly intended as defendants.

The companies suing claim the AMCC has violated the medical marijuana law passed by the Legislature, known as the Compassion Act, and has violated the Alabama Administrative Procedures Act. They say the investigative hearings to challenge license denials will be futile because they will happen after the AMCC has issued all the licenses allowed under the law. For example, there are more than 30 applicants for integrated licenses, but the AMCC can issue only five.

A new issue raised by the unsuccessful applicants is that the Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries has not been involved in the licensing for cultivation, as required by the law.

At the conclusion of Thursday’s hearing, Anderson gave the companies until April 1 to file motions in response to the AMCC’s motion to dismiss the cases. The judge said the AMCC would then have until April 15 to file a response.

Before the licensing process stalled, officials expected medical marijuana products to be available this year. That timeline is now uncertain.

The Legislature approved medical marijuana in 2021 and created the AMCC to oversee seed-to-sale regulation of the industry, which will be fully intrastate.

Products can include gummies, tablets, capsules, tinctures, patches, oils, and other forms allowed by the legislation.

Patients who receive a recommendation from a certified doctor and receive a medical cannabis card from the AMCC 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.