Alabama Opens First Medical Cannabis Dispensary After Five-Year Wait

Five years after Alabama’s legislature authorized a medical cannabis program, patients in the state can walk into a dispensary and buy medicine. Callie’s Apothecary in Montgomery opened for sales on June 4, 2026 — the first dispensary to operate under the state’s program, and the first time in Alabama’s history that a patient could legally purchase cannabis products from a licensed retailer.

The wait between law and store was not supposed to be this long.

How a 2021 Law Took Five Years to Reach a Shelf

Alabama’s legislature passed the Darren Wesley ‘Ato’ Hall Compassion Act in May 2021, with Governor Kay Ivey signing the measure on May 17, 2021. The law established the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission to run licensing and regulation, designated 16 qualifying conditions — including cancer, PTSD, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, sickle cell anemia, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, and chronic or intractable pain where other treatments have failed — and prohibited smokable, vapable, and food-based product forms. Under the law, patients can access tinctures, tablets, capsules, lozenges, patches, topical gels and oils, suppositories, transdermal patches, nebulizers, liquids or oils for inhalers, and non-sugar-coated gel cubes. No flower, no vape, no cookies or candies.

What the law did not guarantee was a clean path to implementation. The AMCC’s early licensing rounds were challenged in court almost immediately after the commission announced them. Companies that weren’t awarded dispensary licenses sued, alleging a discriminatory selection process and procedural violations. Each round of litigation reset the clock. A case brought by five parents over delays in patient access was dismissed in August 2025, according to Alabama Reflector reporting — but by then, years had already slipped by.

The program found its footing when the AMCC voted in December 2025 to award four dispensary licenses. Three — to CCS of Alabama, GP6 Wellness, and RJK Holdings — were formally issued on January 8, 2026. A fourth license, expected to go to Yellowhammer Medical Dispensaries, remains stayed pending judicial resolution of a licensing challenge.

A Narrow Program, With Room to Grow

The patient pipeline into the program is deliberately gated. Alabama residents must be at least 19, hold one of the 16 qualifying conditions, and obtain a recommendation from a physician who has completed a four-hour medical cannabis training course certified by the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners and separately registered with the AMCC. That two-step certification process has kept physician participation scarce: as of the June 4, 2026 opening, the Board of Medical Examiners listed 52 physicians certified statewide, and AMCC Director John McMillan said the commission’s patient registry held just over 300 registered patients. Both numbers are expected to grow now that patients have somewhere to fill a recommendation — a circular problem the program spent years stuck inside.

The first purchase at Callie’s Apothecary was made by Amanda Taylor, a patient advocate with multiple sclerosis who drove more than two hours from Cullman to reach the Montgomery dispensary. Taylor had relocated to Arizona for years to access cannabis treatment before returning to Alabama to advocate for the program. She bought a water-soluble tincture and gel cubes, and told reporters she expects the products to ease nausea, vomiting, and tremors from her condition. “I will be able to remove some very dangerous pharmaceuticals, and I’ll be able to replace them with something that God put on this earth for this specific reason,” she told reporters at the dispensary.

What Comes Next for the Program

CCS of Alabama, which operates Callie’s Apothecary, holds permits for two additional locations in Bessemer and Talladega. GP6 Wellness and RJK Holdings hold licenses for nine more dispensing sites across Birmingham, Athens, Attalla, Oxford, Daphne, and Mobile — storefronts McMillan said should open this summer. If Yellowhammer Medical Dispensaries’ stayed license clears the courts, the program reaches 12 dispensary locations across four operators.

The AMCC can also issue up to five integrated facility licenses, each authorizing up to five dispensing sites — a pathway that could eventually add up to 25 more retail locations, according to the commission’s own guidance, though no integrated licenses have been issued yet.

The program levies a 9% gross proceeds tax on retail medical cannabis sales, with revenue initially supporting the commission’s operating costs.

Alabama’s rollout is arriving against a complicated federal backdrop: the state paused automatic cannabis rescheduling in May 2026 to study implementation questions, and ongoing federal litigation over cannabis rescheduling adds uncertainty about the federal framework surrounding state programs. Neither issue affects current dispensary operations, but both will shape how the program is managed going forward. Alabama’s experience is also worth watching alongside Kentucky’s medical cannabis program, which expanded its qualifying conditions list in June 2026 — two Southern states that legalized in the same recent wave now illustrating different rates of patient-access maturity.

For Alabama’s qualified patients — including many who have been on the registry since it opened, waiting for a dispensary to match their registration card — the commission has finally produced a place to shop.