Hundreds express interest in Alabama medical marijuana licenses

FOLEY, Ala. (WALA) – More than 230 companies statewide have asked for applications for medical marijuana licenses, including 18 in Mobile County and 13 in Baldwin County, according to the Alabama Medical Marijuana Commission.

Others are considering the idea. That includes Foley-based Oscity Labs, founded four years ago by former Mobile Mayor Mike Dow and others.

Oscity Labs has not applied for a license and has not even requested an application. But Dow, co-founder of the company, says it’s something the firm is considering. It already has a seed-to-sale operation that turns hemp into various products, like CBD and CBG.

Dow told FOX10 News that he became interested in the industry out of concern for veterans.

“It helps them,” he said. “You can get products for sleep, for mood, for anxiety, for calm, for these kinds of things. And there’s kind of a real need in that marketplace for just a lot of health and wellness.”

The state is in the process of creating a tightly regulated medical marijuana industry. The commission expects to award licenses in June 2023 – 12 to cultivators, four each to processors and dispensaries and five to integrated facilities, which will allow firms to perform all four functions. The commission also will award an unspecified number of licenses to transport the product and serve as state testing laboratories.

The deadline for requesting and application is Oct. 7, and a spokeswoman for the license commission said companies will have to submit the application by Dec. 30.

For now, Oscity Labs is relying on its hemp business. Under state law, it can produce a variety of products – marketed as treatments for maladies as wide-ranging as ant bites, burns and insomnia – as long as they contain less than 3 percent THC. That’s the active ingredient of marijuana.

The company moved two years ago into a former sweet potato chip facility in Foley. It grows hemp on its 350-acre farm in Brewton and the processes it at the Foley plant. That involves drying and dehydrating the hemp plant and then storing it.

The facility then extracts cannabinoids off of the hemp plant. CEO Ray French said there are some 140 different cannabinoids. After cleaning and removing the remaining impurities, the facility ends up with distillates, used to create products like CBD and CBG.

French said the company, including the farm, employs about 20 full-time workers plus additional part-time farmhands.

“We’re really excited to be able to bring these jobs and these products here to the state of Alabama and are working to build a team that can bring accurate and effective products to the market,” he said.

Christopher Whaley, a Daphne native who worked in the industry in Colorado before returning home to become Oscity Labs’ chief science officer, said it is an incredibly complicated process – especially in Alabama’s high humidity.

“To get it to that level of purity requires days’ and days’ worth of processing,” he said. “From the time that we bring a flower in here to the time I created a finished distillate, there’s probably a seven-business-day turnaround.”

Dr. Sean Hollonbeck, the company’s chief medical officer, said cannabinoids don’t have the same side effects as many prescription painkillers.

“And I got to see the side effects side, particularly in pain management, and the challenges with sleep,” he said.

Hollonbeck said the healing properties of hemp work by augmenting the body’s owns chemistry. He said he became interested in the field during his time in the military.

“I began my interest in this field because like a lot of scientists and physicians, I’ve heard about it, right?” he said. “But I didn’t really know about it. And they certainly didn’t teach it in medical school.”

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