A fifth-generation farm in Daphne, a 400-employee nursery in Loxley and a U-pick farm with Airbnb rentals in Fairhope are all waiting to pioneer for the state its venture into medical cannabis.

The Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission voted on June 12 to award medical cannabis business licenses to 21 applications, including three from Baldwin County.

According to the law, which was signed by Gov. Kay Ivey in May 2021, the Commission could award up to 12 cultivator licenses, four processor licenses, four dispensary licenses and five integrated facility licenses. The number of licenses for secure transport and state testing lab licenses was not specified.

Flowerwood Medical Cannabis LLC is based in Loxley. As one of the five integrated facility licenses awarded, the company will grow, process and sell products. According to Kevin Northrop, chief operating officer, dispensaries will be in Loxley, Mobile, Monroeville, Montgomery and Gadsden.

"We went to (Commission) meetings and listened to the need," Northrop said. "It wasn't your stereotypical need of a user, it was old church ladies and white-collar professionals who were expressing a real need for this in our state because they've tried other things and it wasn't working for them or a family member."

Flowerwood Nursery has been operating for 85 years and has been in Loxley since the '40s. They employ roughly 400 employees depending on the season and maintain 2 million square feet of greenhouse space. The nursery grows, ships, markets and delivers to brands as big as Home Depot and Lowes, and they are the brand owners for Encore Azalea.

That experience in commercial-scale horticulture is what uniquely qualifies Flowerwood for the integrated facility role, Northrop said.

Flowerwood Medical is a separate company from the nursery, and they've partnered with local farming families like Christina Woerner McInnis, CEO and founder of SoilKit, one of the largest producers of sod in the country.

While those involved and approved have voiced excitement for moving forward with the pioneer program, a bump in the road appeared just a few days after the initial announcement of approvals. The Commission voted June 16 to stay all proceedings after discovering "potential inconsistencies" in how the applications were tabulated.

The Commission will use an independent review of all scoring data.

The stay paused procedural requirements, meaning the approved applications have not yet had to pay license fees, and likely they won't get their licenses by July 10. Those who were denied have been given a pause on submitted a request for investigating hearings by the end of June.

Once the stay is lifted, the award of licenses will be reconsidered, and a new timeline will be given for procedural requirements.

"We are excited to begin working with those applicants who were awarded licenses to meet the needs of so many Alabamians who are living with debilitating conditions that can benefit from medical cannabis," Commission Director John McMillan said at the initial June 12 meeting.

Heather Stringfellow and her husband, Tynes, said they hope the stay works itself out so they and the other licensees can move forward.

The Stringfellows opened Weeks Bay Plantation in Fairhope in 2000 as a plant nursery and got certified as USDA organic. Since opening, they've opened a commercial blueberry farm, event venue and Airbnb lodges on 60 acres of land that includes a 10-acre spring-fed lake, and they are known for sending their tomatoes to chefs and produce stores around the area.

They sprouted two greenhouses for hemp with it was legalized in Alabama and started researching the medical side when that path started clearing for Gulf Shore Remedies LLC.

"We have a veteran with cancer and a mother who has Alzheimer's. I'm amazed at what we know so far about what it can offer people, and we're all for it," Stringfellow said. "My husband has been a horticulturalist for over 40 years."

Her father served in Vietnam and brought back a Purple Heart, Gold Star, "the whole nine yards. When people see him, they immediately stand up."

He was living in Texas in 2020 when the cancer diagnosis came. He was told he wouldn't make it to November. They did surgery, moved him to Fairhope. Both of Stringfellow's parents are still alive.

"He dabbled with CBD when we produced hemp, and we've seen an amazing change in him," Stringfellow said. "He's another person I'm in this for."

Once available, participating physicians can certify patients for medical cannabis use for 15 conditions, including cancer, weight loss, chronic pain, Chron's and Parkinson's diseases, depression, epilepsy, HIV/AIDS-related nausea, panic disorders, PTSD, sickle cell, multiple sclerosis, Tourette's, spinal chord injury or a terminal illness.

Patients will receive a card to obtain products from licensed dispensers. The law says products can be available as tablets, capsules, tinctures, gelatins, lozenges, oils, gels, creams, suppositories, transdermal patches, nebulizers or inhalable liquid. The law prohibits medical cannabis from being smoked, used as raw plant material or consumed in food.