Alabama Cannabis Commission awards new licenses even as it reveals number and scope of scoring errors greater than first reported

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (WBRC) - The number and scope of errors in the scoring and evaluation process of applications for medical marijuana licenses in Alabama was much greater than the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission first reported.

In Thursday’s Medical Cannabis Commission meeting, Lynne Chronister, Vice President, Research and Economic Development at the University of South Alabama’s Vice President revealed new details about errors.

To put it mildly, in a process that’s supposed to govern the licensing of what’s projected to be an industry worth more than $600 million within two to three years, that’s a significant number of errors both in number and scale of potential problems they can cause.

The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) has now awarded licenses in all categories. Applicants have 21 days to ask for an evidentiary hearing if they were denied a license, but Judge Anderson who is overseeing lawsuits related to the AMCC could also step in with an injunction.

Notably, the AMCC is voting on multiple license awards without any discussion. The Commission attorney said they would “discuss” applicants in a private/executive session to protect their reputation under his interpretation of the Open Meetings Act.

The University of South Alabama says an evaluator accidentally submitted their score twice for one of the integrated cannabis licenses, that had a trickle-down effect on calculating averages of all scores.

Below is a list of errors in scoring Medical Cannabis License Applications by the University of South Alabama that were revealed at the Commission meeting Thursday.

A scorer hit “submit” button twice for one integrated license (the biggest category), doubling their score and messing up the average scores.

Evaluators incorrectly applied the wrong weight to every applicant score in all categories.

Scores in the Processor category were sorted/averaged by the evaluator, not the applicant,

Quantitative and qualitative scores were inconsistent in all categories, forcing some scoring changes.

Data-entry errors: some evaluators mis-keyed the numbers and had to be contacted by email to give the correct data, and some of the data they gave was applied to the wrong applicant or not at all.

The University of South Alabama says it fixed all of the errors it found and had KMPG independently verify, and has confidence in the numbers it’s now giving the AMCC.

The new AMCC Chair Rex Vaughn says the Commission may have “another application window” opening “sometime soon down the road” and encourages applicants who were denied today “don’t lose heart” as this process may head to courts now.

Get news alerts in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store or subscribe to our email newsletter here.

Copyright 2023 WBRC. All rights reserved.