State treasurer seeks new cannabis chair as lawmakers consider changes to agency
Photo | Grant Welker
Worcester's Union Station, home of the state's Cannabis Control Commission
Treasurer Deb Goldberg is beginning to look for a new chair of the Cannabis Control Commission, she said Tuesday, despite an upcoming legislative hearing that could redefine how the regulatory agency's leadership is appointed.
Amid a slew of controversies at the CCC, the Legislature's Cannabis Policy Committee's House chair, Rep. Daniel Donahue of Worcester, plans to hold a hearing at the end of October on "identifying the best path forward" for the commission.
In July, Donahue identified three areas of the CCC's enabling statute that his committee would like to revisit, including two potentially contradictory sections delineating powers of the CCC chair — appointed by the treasurer — and the agency's executive director, chosen by commissioners with staff input.
"Further, the Committee has identified broader opportunities for reconsideration, including appointment and removal powers, as well as the structural model of the agency itself," Donahue wrote in a July memo to House Speaker Ron Mariano.
The agency is currently without a permanent executive director and its ruling commission without a chair, as the CCC has been in the spotlight for a series of personnel disputes. The CCC's inaugural executive director, Shawn Collins, resigned in late 2023; and Goldberg fired Chair Shannon O'Brien for "gross misconduct" last month, which O'Brien's lawyers said she plans to appeal to the Supreme Judicial Court.
In the meantime, the five-person commission has been left with only three active commissioners, as Commissioner Ava Callender Conception, who is pregnant, is on medical leave.
"Right now there are only three?" Goldberg said, looking to her chief of staff for confirmation. Her chief of staff nodded and Goldberg continued, "Three members of the Cannabis Control Commission, which is hard for them in terms of votes and operating. So we've made a commitment to begin looking."
She added, "It might prove to be more challenging, because those who might consider it might be concerned about changes that could take place. But we'll address this as we move forward."
Goldberg, who talked to reporters about the CCC after an unrelated event in downtown Boston on Tuesday, also repeatedly said that her office does not have oversight of the agency.
A reporter asked the treasurer if the Legislature erred in structuring the CCC how it did, modeling the agency after the Gaming Commission, instead of similar to the Alcohol Beverages Control Commission (ABCC), which falls more directly under the treasurer's oversight. The 2016 voter law that legalized non-medical cannabis here put oversight of the agency under the Treasury, but the Legislature's 2017 rewrite changed that to the CCC as it is structured today.
"I can't really speculate on that, because it didn't happen," she responded. "So we don't know what would have happened moving forward. I mean, at the time that the law passed, we were all geared up and running to address the structure and address the approach — but then it was moved out of the office and set up the way that the Gaming Commission is set up."
Her chief of staff added that, before the Legislature changed the law originally approved by voters, the treasurer would have had the power to appoint every commissioner on the CCC, like she does on the ABCC.
"I think the industry overall is so new, and I think every state has had its own set of glitches," Goldberg said. "I can't remember what state I read about last week which was having some issues and challenges also. So time will tell on all of these."
When pressed about whether the CCC is turning a corner on the issues it's been having, Goldberg again said she does not have control over the agency.
"I'm not being cute here. We don't have oversight. We have no way of really knowing what goes on over there, so I have absolutely no idea. And I don't know what 'turn the corner' actually means because I have no oversight," she said.
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