OK to Exhale...Cannabis Comm Finally Gets a Leader

Months of suspense are over. State cannabis regulators have picked their next executive director, voting Monday to begin the process of bringing back a former head of its government affairs operation to lead the entire agency into a new chapter. This comes after the formal firing of former Commissioner Shannon O'Brien, and ongoing legal actions between her and her 'boss' -- State Treasurer Goldberg.

The Cannabis Control Commission voted 3-0 Monday to begin contract negotiations with David Lakeman, who has been leading the Cannabis Division at the Illinois Department of Agriculture since he left the CCC in 2020. Before settling on Lakeman as their preferred candidate late Monday afternoon, commissioners interviewed him and three other finalists in public at their Worcester headquarters.

Lakeman will have much to do, including determining to the satisfaction of the public and cannabis businesses like those in Franklin, why so many mandatory fees appear not to have been properly collected by the Commission.

"I see Mr. Lakeman as someone who is well-versed in the Massachusetts cannabis industry, but also built an agency in Illinois. I have in my notes 102 employees that he managed and a $28.4 million budget, some really innovative things around a testing lab and around badging and around IT and technical support out in his industry. And I believe we're at a point ... I think stakeholders want to see us move at a quicker pace and want to see us get things accomplished," Commissioner Kimberly Roy said. "And government sometimes moves at its own pace, but having an individual that has already accomplished some of the things we're trying to accomplish here for the industry, I think would be extraordinarily helpful."

When the CCC launched its search for the second full-fledged executive director in its seven-year history this spring, commissioners said they were looking for a "visionary leader" and a "tough, strategic thinker" who can lead the agency that has been under a harsh spotlight for more than a year as the legal marijuana industry it oversees matures and prepares for potential shifts at the federal level.

Lakeman, the current director of the Cannabis Division at the Illinois Department of Agriculture, was the CCC's first point-person on Beacon Hill. He said he was the sixth employee hired by the agency, and worked as its director of government affairs from 2018 until 2020. Before his CCC stint, Lakeman was a legislative analyst at the Massachusetts Municipal Association and served on the Cannabis Advisory Board, a role in which he was responsible for writing parts of the CCC's regulations.

"I have a great deal of experience, I think probably matched only by a handful of people nationwide, of regulating multiple state programs while also having been here from the very onset of the Massachusetts program," he said during his interview Monday morning. "The subject matter expertise is very deep and that is something that I'm able to bring to the commission, both in terms of institutional knowledge and knowing how we got here, but also being able to then bring an outside perspective with a great deal of management experience and policy experience from outside the state."

After roughly hourlong interviews with each of the four candidates, deliberations among the three commissioners mostly focused on two: Lakeman and Travis Ahern. Ahern has been town administrator for Holliston since July 2020 and has previous experience as finance director for the town of Danvers, financial analyst for the town of Weston, and in policy and finance roles (including director) at the Massachusetts Water Resource Authority Advisory Board.

The commission also interviewed an internal candidate, Matt Giancola, who succeeded Lakeman in the CCC's government affairs job. Marty Golightly, a retired U.S. Navy chief petty officer who works as senior director of clinical staff affairs at Brooklyn-based Cityblock Health, was also interviewed Monday. GoLightly has past work experience as a local-level public health official, including a tenure leading Abington's response to the COVID-19 pandemic as its public health director.

"Each candidate brings a varied and unique background for us to consider, and each candidate also exhibited energy and enthusiasm for the position during our interviews," Acting CCC Chair Bruce Stebbins, who was part of the subcommittee that screened applicants, said at the outset of the daylong public interview process.

The CCC's inaugural executive director, Shawn Collins, resigned in late 2023, and Chief People Officer Debra Hilton-Creek has been serving as acting executive director in the meantime.

"I don't think anybody's as excited as I am about this, having a new ED," Hilton-Creek said Monday.

Lakeman will be offered a salary within a range with a midpoint of $187,000 and the new executive director is expected to work out of the agency's headquarters at Worcester's Union Station "according to a hybrid work schedule," according to the job posting. The CCC voted to have Stebbins and Hilton-Creek enter into salary negotiations with Lakeman, complete a background check on him, and agree with him on a starting date.

A Changing CCC Landscape

As the CCC's new executive director, Lakeman will take over as the administration head of an agency that has been through a rocky year-plus and appears poised for a legislative retooling. And the entire cannabis landscape could shift if long-discussed federal scheduling changes come to fruition, a possibility that commissioners raised in interviews and their deliberations Monday.

Amid the slew of controversies at the CCC since 2023, a key House lawmaker said this summer his committee "recognizes the need for clarity in structure and accountability at the Cannabis Control Commission" and "foresees a legislative path forward addressing the sources of concerns about the CCC’s administrative function."

The Cannabis Policy Committee's House chair, Rep. Daniel Donahue of Worcester, has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday on "identifying the best path forward" for the CCC. 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 and the agency's executive director.

"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.

Lakeman mentioned the committee's hearing during his interview Monday. He said one of his early priorities as executive director would be to work with commissioners, staff members and lawmakers to clarify the "workflow" for the commission and to make sure lines of communication "are clear, and that there's a structure that mitigates and neutralizes some of -- if I'm being frank -- just some of the nonsense that you guys have been dealing with."

"This is man made. This is not anything that we cannot fix. Every one of you as commissioners and all the staff are extremely smart, extremely dedicated public servants; this can get fixed. And it is, I think, about 80 percent of that is something that once you have the full-time executive director who can work with the commission staff to clarify exactly where we've been and also determine what we need to do moving forward...Again, this has been my skill set for the last four years," he said.

He also touted his past work representing the CCC before the Legislature as a strength for a new executive director.

"I don't need a tour guide to show me where the Committee on Marijuana Policy meets, right? I know how to do that. I know how to manage, I know how to create and develop policies, procedures and systems, and do all of that as a comprehensive whole, and knowing how each of those pieces moves and needs to move together, and again, the specific players involved in Massachusetts," he said. "That's an experience that is ready on day one."

What is supposed to be a five-person commission has also been shorthanded for months, with only three commissioners presently active.

Treasurer Deborah Goldberg fired Shannon O'Brien as chair of the CCC citing "gross misconduct" last month, but O'Brien had been suspended from the role since September 2023. Commissioner Ava Callender Concepcion, who had been serving as acting chair during much of O'Brien's suspension, has been out on medical leave and Goldberg tapped Stebbins to serve as acting chair while she looks towards making a new appointment.

"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 said this month about seeking a new chair at a time when the Legislature is mulling potential changes to its role.

Once Lakeman starts as executive director -- he said he would need to negotiate his departure from Illinois with the administration there -- the CCC will be about six months behind its original schedule, which contemplated a July 1 start date for its new executive leader.