Tuesday is an important day in the long-drawn-out effort to start Alabama’s medical marijuana industry.

The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission is scheduled to award licenses for integrated companies that will cultivate, process, transport, and dispense medical cannabis products.

There are 36 applicants for integrated licenses, but the AMCC, under the law passed by the Legislature in 2021, can award only five.

Tuesday’s license awards will be the third time the AMCC has awarded licenses to integrated companies. The AMCC rescinded license awards made in June and again in August because of lawsuits and problems with the AMCC’s procedures, which the AMCC revised in October as a result of the litigation.

One of the new rules allowed the applicants to make public presentations before the AMCC. Those were done last week.

Another part of the new procedures was the subject of a new lawsuit filed Friday by Alabama Always LLC, a Montgomery company that applied for an integrated license and that has filed previous litigation against the commission.

After a hearing on Monday, Montgomery County Circuit Judge James Anderson denied the request by Alabama Always for an order that would block use of a rule the AMCC adopted in October.

Under that rule, the AMCC’s 12 voting members will rank each of the 36 applicants, and the AMCC staff will average those to obtain a composite ranking. The composite ranking will determine the order in which the applicants are considered when the AMCC votes on license awards. Because only five licenses can be awarded, that means many of the 36 applicants might not be considered during the voting.

Alabama Always claimed in its lawsuit the process will allow one or two of the 12 voting members of the AMCC to “blackball” an applicant by giving it a ranking of 30 or below, making it unlikely the applicant will be considered before the five licenses are awarded. The company said that could happen even if the majority of the commission gave the applicant a high ranking.

During a hearing Monday afternoon, Judge Anderson said the AMCC can determine its own procedures as long as they follow the law and make the ranking records public. The AMCC has posted the composite rankings here.

Anderson said at the conclusion of the hearing that he would deny the Alabama Always request and later did so in a written order.

Tuesday’s license awards in the integrated category will be the second time the AMCC has used the ranking and voting rule. On Dec. 1, the AMCC awarded licenses to a total of 20 companies in the five other categories, cultivators, processors, transporters, dispensaries, and testing labs.

Another part of the new ranking procedure was controversial during that meeting. There were ties in the rankings in the cultivator and processor categories. The AMCC used a drawing to break the ties. In the processor category, the drawing effectively eliminated one of the companies because the drawing was to determine the No. 4 ranking position, and the AMCC could only award four processor licenses.

The owners of the company that lost out in the drawing to be considered for a processor license, Enchanted Green, have filed a federal lawsuit claiming that the AMCC violated their right to due process by not having a better system in place to decide tie scores. They also broke open meetings law by conducting the drawing without allowing company representatives to examine the pieces of paper, the lawsuit alleges.

The company is seeking an emergency injunction to stop the licensing process.

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.