Remember when former President Donald Trump’s former spin doctor, Sean Spicer, burst into the press room to claim that the crowd at Trump’s inauguration was the largest on record?
He went on and on like a madman, ranting about the size of the crowd and ignoring the clear photographic evidence that the crowd was far from the largest it could be. Even Trump supporters were like, “Dude, what are you doing here? Look at the pictures.”
That’s outrageous.
John McMillan struck a similar tone in the Capital Journal last week, saying the Alabama Medical Marijuana Board, which he chairs, is stumped by ongoing lawsuits that have halted the licensing process, and that most of the lawsuits are frivolous (he didn’t specify which ones are not).
“Nobody is more frustrated than the commission and its staff, certainly me, because, frankly, in my opinion, most of these lawsuits are frivolous,” McMillan said on air. “But they’ve been used as a delaying tactic. I think a lot of the lawsuits have come from the idea that, ‘Let’s just block the whole thing. Let’s stop the commission from doing anything. Let’s stop this program through the courts and get this resolved through Congress. Let’s make sure nothing happens until something gets passed through Congress.'”
Reliable person.
Perhaps we should forget that AMCC (again, headed by Mr McMillan) has twice admitted to screwing up the process by not following the law as written and by bungling the grading system so completely that no grades were usable at this point.
We should also not overlook the fact that in attempting to award these licenses, AMCC committed the most blatant violation of the Alabama Open Meetings Act I have ever seen: this is a public agency that held a board meeting to have a public debate about the licenses (a clear violation of OMA), then voted on the licenses in a closed board meeting (also a violation), then announced the winners in board meeting and then made them public (also a violation).
For all these reasons, AMCC has been sued repeatedly and won, and the licensing process has remained stalled and litigation continues as the Commission steadfastly refuses time and time again to fully correct its mistakes.
Look, it’s embarrassing that more than three years after the state legislature passed a bill allowing medical marijuana, patients still aren’t getting the medicine. After all, Mississippi passed its bill after us and it’s already in effect.
But in the world of law, there’s little point in complaining. At some point, there must be a good reason why these cases are still dragging on and the process is still stalled. And there is a good reason.
Mr McMillan and his staff are a complete failure.
From the very beginning of this process, there have been some unexplained oddities and odd little glitches, like why some companies were allowed different options to get around the attachment limits, or why one commissioner was so involved in the strange grading process that the University of South Alabama was in charge of.
Speaking of which, what about those strange scores? Those strange discrepancies between the graders?
And the strangest thing is, why doesn’t the AMCC hold true public meetings – publicly discussing the scores and company ratings, publicly voting, and publicly announcing the winners?
The lawsuit seeks only to hold such a public meeting and for the AMCC to follow the law enacted by Congress. That’s it.
The people of Alabama deserve better than that. Period.
