Alabama’s First Medical Cannabis Sale Left Three Shops

Amanda Taylor bought Alabama’s first legal medical cannabis on June 3, 2026, a tincture and gel cubes at Callie’s Apothecary in Montgomery. The Cullman woman, who has multiple sclerosis, had driven two hours and once left the state as a self-described medical refugee. By late September the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission still listed three open shops, and all three lock the doors on Saturday and Sunday.

Lawmakers built that thin map in 2021. License caps, a stayed fourth dispensary award, and a ban on video visits now do more to shape access than the first sale ever did.

Amanda Taylor Drove Two Hours for a Tincture

Taylor walked out of Callie’s talking about patients, not a ribbon. She has multiple sclerosis and said cannabis does work her other drugs did not. Some of those MS medicines, she said, had started to hurt her heart.

This is a historic day for the patients.

Amanda Taylor, medical cannabis patient, after the first legal purchase at Callie’s Apothecary in Montgomery

She called herself a medical refugee for leaving Alabama when the state had no legal program. She predicted the shops would pull other people with chronic illness back home. “This is medicine,” she said, and argued that results would drain the shame off the word.

Callie’s, operated by CCS of Alabama, LLC, held its public opening the next morning, June 4, at 5232 Atlanta Highway. Justin Aday, general counsel for the commission, said that in the first days 102 patients completed 111 transactions, about $14,600 in pre-tax sales, with an average ticket of $131.56. The commission had also lifted early rationing so a patient could buy a full 60-day allotment.

Owner Vince Schilleci built a pharmacy-style counter, not a smoke shop. That look matches the statute. Alabama still bars raw flower and anything a patient would smoke or vape.

Alabama Still Has Three Medical Cannabis Shops

The second counter was not a new company. On August 28, CCS opened another Callie’s at 309 Battle Street W in Talladega. The commission said the Montgomery shop had by then served over 800 patients and rung up nearly 1300 sales. Schilleci said Talladega was for people who had stayed off the program because they would not drive to Montgomery.

Janet Sparks, a patient who had been making that trip, put the same point in plainer words: it beat driving two hours. John Cabrera, a Marine veteran with six back surgeries, said he wanted the products for pain and PTSD. Alora Frank, an area manager for Callie’s, said Talladega was a town that needed a counter.

North Alabama got a different operator on September 14. GP6 Wellness, LLC, opened Bama Bloom at 809 U.S. Highway 72 W, Suites A and B, in Athens, the first shop north of Talladega. Renu Patel, vice president of operations, said traffic had been steady and that more of it depends on people finishing state registration. The store held a public grand opening on September 21.

The commission’s patient page now lists three open shops with posted hours. Each runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. A patient who works those hours, or who cannot travel on a weekday, still has no legal counter.

THE FIRST THREE COUNTERS

Callie’s own site still tags a third store, at 1263 Greenmor Drive in Bessemer, as coming soon. After the Athens opening, the commission said it expected shops in Birmingham and Bessemer within a month. The Bessemer shop listed as coming soon had not moved onto the commission’s open list by late September.

The Fourth License Remains Stayed

Three firms hold the dispensary licenses that are actually in force: CCS, GP6 Wellness, and RJK Holdings AL, LLC. State rules let each of those companies run up to three storefronts, a nine-site grid if all of them open. RJK has not opened Oxford, Mobile, or Daphne. GP6 has Athens and has named Birmingham and Etowah County, including Attalla, as later stops.

A fourth dispensary license, awarded on December 11, 2025, remains stayed. That award would add three more retail sites. Integrated facility licenses, the seed-to-sale class, are still in administrative hearings. The commission may issue up to five of those, and each holder may run five shops, which is how the statute reaches up to 25 additional dispensing sites. Add the 12 sites from four dispensary licenses and the full paper map is 37 counters. Three of them are selling.

John McMillan, director of the commission, said the agency had been tied up in lawsuits for almost five years and that five licensees were issued and going. The integrated class, he said, is the one still held up. He put a full rollout around the end of 2026 or early 2027.

Sam Blakemore, the commission chairman, called more locations a matter of access and price when Talladega opened. Price is still cash retail. Board consent language warns patients that insurance and government programs may not pay, and that a certification is not a prescription.

THE ROAD FROM THE 2021 LAW

1. 2021: Governor Kay Ivey signs Act 2021-450, the Darren Wesley “Ato” Hall Compassion Act, creating the commission and a medical-only market.
2. December 11, 2025: The commission approves dispensary licenses for CCS of Alabama, GP6 Wellness, and RJK Holdings. A fourth award is later stayed.
3. January 8, 2026: The three unstayed dispensary licenses take effect.
4. June 3, 2026: Taylor completes the first state-sanctioned purchase in Montgomery.
5. June 4, 2026: Callie’s Apothecary opens to registered patients on Atlanta Highway.
6. August 28, 2026: Callie’s opens the state’s second shop, in Talladega.
7. September 14, 2026: Bama Bloom opens in Athens, the third shop and the first in North Alabama.
8. September 18, 2026: The State Committee of Public Health withdraws Alabama’s objection to federal Schedule III treatment of licensed medical cannabis.

The long gap was not a quiet wait for construction. Scoring errors, a withdrawn round of awards, Open Meetings Act fights, and the integrated-license docket pushed product off shelves years past the statute.

How Alabama Patients Get a Medical Cannabis Card

A shop visit is the last step, not the first. The commission will not let anyone in without a state medical cannabis card. Only registered patients and caregivers may enter.

CARD REQUIREMENTS

• Residency: The patient must live in Alabama.
• Age: The patient must be at least 19, or a parent or legal guardian must register as caregiver.
• Condition: A registered certifying physician must diagnose a qualifying medical condition.
• Recommendation: That physician, certified by the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners and registered with the commission, must enter a recommendation in the state registry.
• Portal: The patient then finishes an AMCC registry application. A caregiver files a separate form after the physician record exists.

The statute lists 15 qualifying conditions, among them autism spectrum disorder, cancer-related symptoms, Crohn’s disease, depression, epilepsy, panic disorder, Parkinson’s disease, some forms of persistent nausea, PTSD, sickle cell anemia, spasticity from motor neuron disease including ALS, spasticity from multiple sclerosis or spinal cord injury, a terminal illness, Tourette’s syndrome, and chronic or intractable pain when standard therapy has failed or is blocked.

Minors need a parent or guardian as caregiver. Adults 19 and older may name a parent, guardian, grandparent, spouse, or a person with a valid health-care power of attorney.

Cubes and Tinctures, but No Smoking

Taylor’s first bag is still a fair picture of the menu. The commission allows non-sugar-coated gelatinous cubes or cuboids, lozenges, tablets, capsules, tinctures, topical gels, oils and creams, suppositories, transdermal patches, nebulizers, and liquids or oils for an inhaler. Bama Bloom has sold lozenges, capsules, gel cubes, tinctures, and topicals from the Athens counter.

WHAT PATIENTS CANNOT BUY

• Flower: Raw plant material is banned.
• Smoke and vapor: Products that could be smoked or vaped are banned.
• Kitchen edibles: Cookies, candies, and other food products are banned.

That list is why the shops read as clinics. It is also why a patient who wants inhaled cannabis still has no legal product in Alabama, three stores or thirty. Doctors may not recommend cannabis with potency above 3 percent THC to a minor. The commission sets daily dose caps by condition, with a ceiling of 75 mg of delta-9-THC unless the physician raises it for medical reasons or the patient has a terminal illness. A higher dose can cost a driver a license, and the physician has to say so.

Doctors Must Sit in the Same Room

Retail is the visible bottleneck. The quieter one is the exam room. Only an Alabama M.D. or D.O. with a medical cannabis certification permit may recommend the drug. The Alabama Board of Medical Examiners requires an active medical license, an Alabama controlled-substances registration, an Alabama-specific DEA registration, PDMP access, and a 4-hour board-approved course with a passing exam. The initial permit fee is $300. The doctor must also register with the commission.

The board bars any form of telemedicine for these visits. Certification, recertification, and the exam itself must happen with the physician and the patient physically present in the same room, both inside Alabama. A doctor may not certify a patient who is pregnant, breastfeeding, or trying to conceive, and may not treat a condition the physician is not trained to treat with ordinary care. Doctors may not take money from a dispensary, steer a patient to one shop, or sit in the same office as a dispensing site.

THE SEPT. 22 PHYSICIAN ROSTER

• 54 doctors: The commission’s registered certifying physician list, current as of September 22, 2026, names 54 permit holders.
• Wide offices, thin shops: Those offices run from Muscle Shoals to Dothan, including Cullman, Huntsville, Mobile, and Birmingham, a doctor map that is larger than the three-shop retail map.
• In-person only: Recertification requires another visit in the same room, so a card is not a mail-in renewal.
• No nurse sign-off: The permit sits on a physician license. A nurse practitioner or physician assistant cannot issue the recommendation.

A patient in Houston County can now find a certifying doctor in Dothan and still have no shop in the Wiregrass. The first-sale coverage treated the Montgomery counter as the missing piece. The missing piece for a lot of counties is still a counter, not a diagnosis.

Public Health Dropped Its Schedule III Objection

On September 18 the State Committee of Public Health voted unanimously to withdraw the objection it filed in May to a federal rule placing certain licensed medical marijuana products in Schedule III. Under Alabama law, a federal scheduling change generally takes effect at the state level after 30 days unless that committee objects. The May objection bought time after the U.S. Department of Justice issued the April order covering FDA-approved marijuana products and qualifying products under state medical licenses. It is a narrower action than moving all marijuana off Schedule I, a broader DEA proceeding that is still open.

State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris said his office did not see a problem with the change, and that a lot of the public comment was about marijuana itself rather than the scheduling mechanic. He has also said the state program was already live even while Alabama still treated the drug as Schedule I, because the 2021 statute decriminalized possession for authorized patients. Tax treatment for licensed firms is the business stake in Schedule III. Three weekday shops do not become a full market because the tax code moved.

Harris’s point sits next to McMillan’s timeline. The medical program is open. The integrated licenses that would multiply storefronts are not. CCS proved a company can run two counters. GP6 proved North Alabama will show up. RJK has yet to flip on the lights. The stayed fourth license still parks three sites in a docket instead of a city.

Taylor said the first sale would bring people home and strip the shame off the word medicine. The law did legalize her tincture. It also left her, and everyone else on the registry, with three doors that close at 6 p.m. on Friday.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on Alabama’s medical cannabis program and is for information only. It is not medical advice, a diagnosis, or a recommendation to use or avoid cannabis, and it is not legal advice about cards, possession, employment, or driving. Speak with a licensed Alabama physician who holds a medical cannabis certification permit, and with a lawyer if you have questions about the Compassion Act, workplace rules, or firearm or custody issues, before you seek a card or buy a product. Patient counts, shop openings, license stays, physician rosters, and federal scheduling status are those published by the sources named above and can change as the commission, the Board of Medical Examiners, and public health officials issue new notices.