For mice and men, the best-laid plans often fail, but that's no reason to give up. Sir Edmund Hillary was not the first man to try to climb Everest, and the Wright brothers were not the first to try to fly an airplane. History is filled with difficult challenges that were succeeded after multiple attempts, many of which spanned multiple generations. Every effort we make toward a worthy goal is rife with opportunities to come closer to success, but only to those who can figure out what went wrong in previous attempts.

It's been a decade since my eyes were opened to the vast potential of cannabis for medical purposes. Until then, most of my experience with the plant had focused on those who abused it or illegally profited from the black market demand created by politically fueled government overreactions. Having a heart that seeks evil prevents you from seeing the good.

In 2014, the Alabama Legislature unanimously passed Curley’s Law, authorizing and funding a research team at the University of Alabama to study cannabis from a perspective untainted by the stigma imposed by short-sighted politicians, narrow-minded bureaucrats, and self-righteous do-gooders who refuse to look elsewhere and only see harm.

As my awareness of the many suffering people who could be helped by this amazing plant grew, so did the weight it placed on my heart. I sought relief in the hope that science, common sense, and compassion would inevitably guide sound policy decisions regarding the medical use of cannabis. I never expected relief to be so hard, or take so long.

Federal bureaucracy tried to protect the stigma with red tape, delaying the UAB study for more than a year and continuing to deny medical marijuana to people who could benefit from it. In 2016, Congress overwhelmingly passed Leni's Law, giving at least some people suffering from certain conditions and their caregivers limited protections from prosecution for possession of low-THC cannabis. It was hard work, but we saw the stigma slowly fading.

As the 2019 regular legislative session approached, cannabis research at UAB had made significant advances that necessitated an extension of the authorization granted in Carly’s Law. We also discovered that someone had sneaked ambiguous language into Leni’s Law during the final hectic days of the 2016 legislative session. As we began drafting a bill to address these issues, the information we had from our UAB research and other sources convinced us that we needed to establish a statewide commission to regulate the cultivation, processing and distribution of medical cannabis.

After careful consideration and working with others, including retired state legislators with cannabis policy experience, State Senator Tim Melson and I introduced legislation in 2019 to establish the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission and outline a workable regulatory structure. It was supposed to pass that year, but bias was still strong, so we settled on a bill to establish the commission.
The Alabama Medical Marijuana Research Commission will conduct further research.

Although our efforts were hindered in 2020 by the impact of COVID-19, the Darren Wesley Atto Hall Compassion Bill was finally passed in 2021, and I was able to leave the Legislature the following year with the satisfaction of having played a major role in at least one worthwhile initiative in my 20 years as a state legislator. I do not regret the effort and still believe it was worthwhile, but the results speak for themselves.

While the bill passed in 2021 is certainly not perfect, I don't see anything in it that would make it unable to fulfill its purpose. It is now 2024 and I am perplexed that the Alabama Medical Marijuana Board has yet to offer therapeutic cannabis to a single patient.

It’s been a decade since we started confronting the stigma against cannabis for those who can benefit medically, and the power of that stigma is slowly but steadily weakening.

What caused our plan to fail? Oversight, incompetence, greed, obstruction, corruption or something else? I don't know, but I do know that while the majority of Alabamians and their elected representatives are reaching their limit of patience, there are many patients waiting who could benefit from the medical use of this plant.

The time to make this happen is now, but it won't happen unless we identify the causes of our failures and address them openly and decisively. This isn't Mount Everest, but it certainly feels that way to me.

Mike Ball retired from the Alabama State Police and Criminal Investigations Department and then served another 20 years as a member of the Alabama House of Representatives. He left politics to I plan to leave the office in 2022 and enjoy life as a musician and philosopher in the shade.