It's been more than five years since Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed into law a bill allowing residents of the state to use medical cannabis. And starting this week, they'll finally have a place to legally buy it.
According to Fox54, Callie's Apothecary in Montgomery will open on Thursday. It's the first retail spot for the dispensary owner, which said it's opening two more soon in nearby Talladega and Bessemer.
It's a major milestone for a state that's struggled for years to launch a legal cannabis market while facing delays and controversy around the licensing procedure. In December, the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission approved licenses for dispensaries and forecast products hitting shelves by the spring of 2026, a timeline the state is still technically on schedule to meet.
But retailers in the state are still facing some delays due in part to Alabama's strict testing rules for cannabis. As the report points out, the state requires biomass to be tested before reaching a processor, multiple times during processing and once more before dispensary delivery. Tyler Robinson, owner of Homestead Health, told Fox54 that all that testing adds up to about two to three weeks for cannabis to go from raw biomass to approved product.
Alabama is one of the majority of states that have legalized medical cannabis use in some form. And about half of U.S. states along with the District of Columbia and some U.S. territories have legalized adult-use recreational cannabis.
In Alabama, patients 19 or older with a qualifying condition can receive a medical cannabis card to buy the products. Parents and others could register as caregivers to obtain the products for minors. But it is illegal to distribute, possess, manufacture, or use medical cannabis or a medical cannabis product that has been diverted from a registered qualified patient, a registered caregiver, or a licensed cultivator, processor, secure transporter, dispensary or a state testing laboratory.
