The Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission is eyeing extra meetings in November and December to take action to shore up the validity and force of commission decisions made during the time that Chairwoman Shannon O'Brien was removed from her post.
Executive Director Travis Ahern said he and O'Brien met with Attorney General Andrea Campbell's office since O'Brien last week raised concerns about the process that led to other commissioners being named acting chair of the CCC while she was unlawfully removed by Treasurer Deborah Goldberg starting in September 2023. O'Brien suggested the CCC would need to take steps to reaffirm votes taken during her two-year exile because they were taken without "an appropriately delegated acting chair."
The CCC had been waiting on an opinion from Campbell's office, but Ahern said late Wednesday it was unclear whether there would be one at all. During Thursday's CCC meeting, O'Brien suggested one was unlikely.
"I basically stated to the attorney general, 'I do not need an opinion, but unless I'm doing something that is in violation of the law, you know' — they can tell me if I'm breaking the law," O'Brien said. "But they basically were very clear that this is very unusual to ask them for that kind of an opinion, and I did this as a courtesy. So we are following the law. We have the standing delegation, so there will be no confusion in the future."
Read more at The Lowell Sun
