Jeffrey Shapiro told WBUR: “No other state agency would be allowed to operate in this environment for this long”
Massachusetts Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro doesn’t speak publicly often. When he does, his comments are often critical of the state’s Cannabis Control Commission.
The OIG is an independent agency tasked with preventing “fraud, waste, and abuse of public resources,” and “promoting quality, integrity, and efficiency in public spending.” To those ends, Shapiro has found plenty to note about CCC operations.
In July 2024, the IG testified on Beacon Hill to members of the Joint Committee on Cannabis Policy on the “need for a receiver to be appointed to stabilize the Cannabis Control Commission.” The agency, he said, “has exhibited many symptoms, its self-help remedies have not worked, and it is now time for a diagnosis and treatment plan to take effect.”
Lawmakers subsequently rejected an opportunity to take over the commission, but Shapiro returned with more critical observations this April. Among them, he wrote in a letter to CCC Executive Director that the agency’s failure to collect certain fees last year was an “egregious operational breakdown” and showed “poor business practices and oversight.”
On the heels of all that, as well as some big recent changes at the CCC including the return of Chair Shannon O’Brien, Shapiro is back at it. “In a wide-ranging interview with WBUR, the IG “said the structure of the commission ’causes confusion as to what actions belong to the chair of the cannabis commission and which belong to the executive director.'”
“No other state agency would be allowed to operate in this environment for this long, in my opinion,” Shapiro added.
The inspector general also commented on legislation currently before the state Senate which would, among other things, change the structure of the CCC as well as its appointing protocols.
