Fired cannabis agency chair files legal appeal
Image | Courtesy of State House News Service
Former Cannabis Control Commission Chairwoman Shannon O'Brien and her lawyer, Max Stern, spoke with reporters after a Dec. 14 hearing in Suffolk Superior Court.
Shannon O'Brien has appealed her firing as chairwoman of the Cannabis Control Commission to the Supreme Judicial Court, arguing that the facts of her situation "were not properly found, and even taking them as true, fail to rise to the heightened grounds for removal."
Treasurer Deborah Goldberg fired O'Brien, herself a former state treasurer and Democratic Party nominee for governor, in September and O'Brien vowed to appeal it to the high court. Goldberg said she decided to fire the CCC chair after carefully considering more than 20 hours of meetings held earlier this year as well as various documents, case law and policies. Goldberg said she fired O'Brien because she "committed gross misconduct and demonstrated she is unable to discharge the powers and duties of a CCC commissioner."
"This case presents important and undecided questions concerning the removal of a commissioner from an independent agency of the Commonwealth. It presents a number of issues of first impression, as the enabling statute of the Commission has never been construed by this Court," lawyers for O'Brien wrote in their new filing. "The case involves the failure to implement basic safeguards to prevent the abuse of political power to destroy the reputation and career of an honest public servant. More than that, however, it involves the welfare of an organization which is not yet fully developed but is responsible for regulating a major new industry in this state."
The O'Brien saga, which began in the summer of 2023 and kicked off a period of turmoil and scandal at the CCC, is one factor that has led state lawmakers to begin mulling possible reforms for the agency they created in 2017. People involved in the legal marijuana world have been frustrated with the slow pace of regulatory changes from the CCC and Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro pleaded with lawmakers in June to intervene by appointing a receiver to manage day-to-day CCC operations at the "rudderless agency."
O'Brien's Nov. 7 filing asks the SJC to vacate Goldberg's removal decision, and either agree to take the matter up as a full court or have a single justice consider it. Thereafter, O'Brien is seeking to be reinstated as chair of the CCC and be granted "such other and further relief as is just and equitable."
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