so unless your tenant is willing to voluntarily vacate, you are stuck. 

When I pick up cash, it smells like pot half the time.

If you pre-signed a lease starting in February hopefully this was addressed in the new lease but if not you are stuck with the current system in my opinion if they do not agree voluntarily. 

Friends and family may tease you and call you a slumlord just to stir the pot of something that they do not totally understand themselves or have no idea the long hours and cost you have put into a piece of property.

Then, if the tenant fails to leave voluntarily, instead of evicting for non-payment of rent, evict them for being a holdover tenant.  

When the tenant voluntarily dropped the suit the investigators asked her more than once if we had coersed her to drop the complaint. 

Pot is highly illegal in Alabama.I need to talk to our long-term tenant who is smoking pot, (allegedly) but would like to not lose her as a tenant if she will stop.Any  advice on the convo with her?  

If the current LL has deposits, you want to be sure that is account for in your transaction so when/if you have to refund deposits, you are left holding the bag....In some cases you can make the sale contingent on the property being vacant, but the current LL has to arrange to get the tenants out and that usually means cash for keys or some other arrangement to have them leave voluntarily......an eviction would be way to long and messy, especially given the COVID issues

I don’t know why you’re being advised to go through an eviction based on the circumstances you presented.You wouldn’t file an eviction against a tenant who has stated they’re moving out, and then voluntarily moved out and returned the keys as agreed.An eviction (unlawful detainer action) is only done to recover possession of a property that someone is refusing to voluntarily return to you.If you still need to recover money from them after they’re out, then you typically go through small claims.

There are millions of people buying homes in the $100k Mark but there are a few that buy million dollar homes, I am a RE agent and not even for one second do I deal with the big deal stuff, I would be working months and months and in the end they buy from someone else I just wasted a lot of time chasing a pot of gold.