Alabama: from grow to dispensary, what the label has to show

Step by step: Alabama

1. Step 1: Harvest batch in Metrc (Cultivator) A licensed cultivator grows a harvest batch: plants given identical propagation and cultivation treatment and harvested together under one cultivation batch number in the Statewide Seed-to-Sale Tracking System, which the Commission runs on Metrc. From here the batch moves to a separately licensed processor and then a dispensary. The label’s cultivator name and license number start here.
2. Step 2: The lab collects the sample (State Testing Laboratory) Alabama leaves no room for self-sampling: the State Testing Laboratory that performs the test must collect the samples itself, at random, on the licensee’s premises, and may carry them without a Secure Transporter. A cannabis sample weighs 10 to 30 grams, enough for two tests, travels in a locked, tamper-evident container, and is logged in the seed-to-sale system.
3. Step 3: Processed into an allowed form (Processor) A licensed processor turns harvest batches into a production batch with its own number, made under one protocol. Alabama law allows only tablets, capsules, tinctures, non-sugarcoated gelatinous cubes, cuboids or lozenges, topicals, suppositories, patches and nebulizer or inhaler liquids: no raw plant material, nothing smoked or vaped, no infused foods. Additives are limited to pharmaceutical-grade excipients. This batch becomes tablets.
4. Step 4: Production run held and sampled (State Testing Laboratory) Once the production run is homogenized for testing, the processor must set the whole run aside, apart from the lab’s samples, until it clears. The lab takes the lesser of 1% of the run’s product weight or 10 units and homogenizes every sample before testing. If the run was split into smaller batches, the lab samples and tests each one.
5. Step 5: The panel and the COA (State Testing Laboratory) The lab must meet ISO/IEC 17025, with accreditation or, if new, a plan to earn it within a year. It measures THC, THCA, CBD and CBDA, and its panel covers terpenes, arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury, residual solvents, pesticides, microbes including Aspergillus and coliforms, and aflatoxins and ochratoxin A, plus pharmaceutical-grade excipients. The final COA reaches the licensee within two business days.
6. Step 6: Fail: seven days to choose (Medical Cannabis Commission) One failed sample fails the whole batch. Within seven days the licensee must destroy it, ask for a retest of the same sample (a pass then goes to a different lab as a tiebreaker, whose result is final), challenge it with two more labs chosen by the Commission testing parallel samples, or remediate, which restarts testing. Challenges are capped at three a year.
7. Step 7: Package + label (Processor) The processor packs the tablets in a child-resistant, tamper-evident container with nothing aimed at children and no health claims. The label names the cultivator and processor with license numbers, shows lot and batch numbers, cannabinoid content and potency and the count, and carries the Commission’s universal state symbol in color, at least one-half inch square, plus a QR code tied to Metrc.
8. Step 8: Dispensary check (Dispensary) A dispensary may sell only tested product that is properly packaged and labeled and bears the state symbol, under a certified dispenser. Before handing it over, staff confirm the patient or caregiver holds a valid medical cannabis card and that the amount fits the physician’s recommendation and the 60-day purchase limit. Alabama’s first dispensary opened in Montgomery on 4 June 2026.