Gov’s pot board pick opposed legalization
State Sen. Flanagan tapped for $120G post
Gov. Charlie Baker has started shaping the powerful state commission charged with overseeing the pot industry, tapping a longtime Beacon Hill pol who opposed legalizing weed to fill the panel’s public health-centered post.
State Sen. Jennifer Flanagan, a Leominster Democrat, will resign her seat on Aug. 31 to take the $120,000-a-year, fiveyear appointment to the Cannabis Control Commission, where she’ll help approve pot shops and craft regulations for an industry she, personally, was against establishing.
Flanagan last year signed on with 118 other lawmakers to a letter that called allowing the legal sale of marijuana, including edibles, the “wrong path for the state” amid its opioid crisis.
Her stance prompted advocates who wrote the original legalization ballot question to yesterday press Flanagan to “put her personal position aside in order to advance the will of Massachusetts voters,” according to Jim Borghesani, a group spokesman.
But Borghesani said he did not remember Flanagan as a regular attendee at any of the debates or informational sessions that marked the build-up to the vote.
“If she opposed,” Borghesani said, “then she was not one of the more vociferous opponents.”
Part of Baker’s rationale in naming Flanagan was his requirement to select someone with a public health background.
Flanagan, who has a master’s degree in mental health counseling, serves as chair of the committee on substance abuse, and last session, helped craft the state’s landmark opioid legislation, including pushing a proposal to require schools to conduct drug screenings of students for drug abuse.
As the Legislature rewrote the state’s marijuana law this spring, Flanagan penned an amendment that passed as part of the new law that subjects anyone who “furnishes” pot to a minor to a $2,000 fine and up to a year in jail.
“She recognizes that it is now the law,” state Sen. Linda Dorcena Forry, a Dorchester Democrat, said of legalized pot. “You can be opposed to something and still be doing the right thing in implementing the law.
“To have her at the table and be one of the commissioners is a good thing.”
Flanagan did not return repeated interview requests yesterday. She’s been on Beacon Hill since the mid-1990s, when she started as a legislative aide, and with the move, will get a considerable pay bump from the nearly $98,000 she makes now.
The other four commission seats must be filled by Sept. 1.
State Treasurer Deb Goldberg will name the chair, Attorney General Maura Healey will make another pick, and they, with Baker, will jointly name the other two.