Local News

Shannon O’Brien, Massachusetts’s top cannabis regulator, was suspended only a year after being appointed to the position.

Shannon O’Brien, chair of the Cannabis Control Commission, has been removed from her post as the top cannabis regulator in Massachusetts. 

State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg suspended O’Brien on Thursday, a spokesperson told Boston.com. Details were not disclosed about how long the suspension might last. The spokesperson said they could not comment further because the situation is a “personnel matter.”

O’Brien, a former treasurer and gubernatorial candidate, returned to state government after decades to oversee the CCC. She was appointed just over a year ago. 

Before coming back to government, O’Brien worked in the cannabis industry. This included becoming a 50% co-owner of Greenfield Greenery, a proposed outdoor marijuana-growing operation. A few weeks after her appointment to head the CCC, the body “remanded” a license application from Greenfield Greenery. This put the grower’s application on hold while officials determined whether O’Brien had violated any disclosure regulations. Greenfield Greenery’s license was eventually granted, and O’Brien was cleared of any wrongdoing, The Boston Globe reported. 

But O’Brien made headlines again this summer, when she said during a meeting that Executive Director Shawn Collins was planning to step down at the end of the year. This surprised her fellow commissioners. O’Brien described the commission as being “in crisis” and said that Collins’s departure would create “chaos,” the Boston Business Journal reported. She later apologized for “any confusion” she created. 

This week, Collins confirmed to the BBJ that he began parental leave on Sept. 11. Collins specified that he had not resigned. He previously told State House News Service that he had not made any definite plans to step down at the end of the year. 

O’Brien served as a state representative and a state senator from 1986 until 1995. She served as treasurer from 1999 to 2002, when she challenged Mitt Romney as the Democratic nominee for governor.