Reefer madness has broken out at the State House.

And unless something is done to contain it, the madness is likely to spread from the office of State Treasurer Deborah Goldberg, where it originated, to other parts of the building.

Once latent, there are fears that if the madness over marijuana spreads, people in the building could soon be forced to wear masks again, like they did during Covid-19, or get high from the fumes.

At issue is Goldberg’s firing last week of fellow Democrat activist Shannon O’Brien, who she once hired, as chair of the five-member Cannabis Control Commission, which comes under her office.

The solution, to quote Tom Petty, might have been for the pair to just get to the point and roll another joint. But it is too late for that.

Seriously, though, Goldberg hired O’Brien, a respected Democrat who was the party’s 2002 nominee for governor, to straighten out a troubled agency that was being run by the staff and not the commission.

However, when O’Brien began making changes, the staff turned on her and complained to Goldberg who then turned on O’Brien and scapegoated her for the CCC’s incompetence.

Or as one well connected State House lobbyist put it: “After a trail of bad decisions, Goldberg hired Shannon O’Brien to rescue the agency, and then completely cut her loose and smeared her reputation.”

Goldberg also came down hard on O’Brien, he said, for recommending that CCC Executive Director Shawn Collins, who was Goldberg’s deputy treasurer and was placed at the agency by Goldberg, be fired for mismanagement.

Lawyer Max Stern, who represents O’Brien, called that recommendation “The kiss of death” for O’Brien.

State Inspector General Jeffrey Shapiro, after a review, in June called on the Legislature to appoint a receiver to manage the CCC.

In a letter to the Legislature, Shapiro said, “The Cannabis Control Commission is a rudderless agency without a clear indication of who is responsible for running its day-to day operations.”

Goldberg a year ago placed O’Brien under suspension from the $196,551 post for allegedly making a series of politically incorrect racial and ethnic remarks. O’Brien denied the charges.

In the interim, the pair met several times in closed door meetings but the squabble over who said what when about who was not resolved, despite court proceedings. Hence the firing.

But Goldberg, in her third term as treasurer, failed to release any specifics related to the firing except to say O’Brien “committed gross misconduct” without saying what the misconduct was.

In these politically correct times, misconduct could be anything, or it could be nothing.

When she suspended O’Brien, Goldberg cited an instance, among others, when O’Brien allegedly said, “I guess you’re not allowed to say ‘yellow’ anymore” in reference to “a person of Asian heritage.”

O’Brien denied making the comment as she did a couple of other alleged racially insensitive remarks Goldberg attributed to her, including one alleged Black reference that is too stupid to quote.

The irony is that not only did Goldberg appoint O’Brien to the position, but O’Brien once also served as state treasurer. She was elected to the post in 1998 and served from 1998 to 2002.

Before that O’Brien served as a state representative and state senator before being elected treasurer.

Now you have a state treasurer turning on a former state treasurer the way you have a president turning on a former president, and Goldberg and O’Brien are both Democrats.

When she won the Democrat primary for governor in 2002, O’Brien beat some formidable opposition, including then Senate President Tom Birmingham, Steve Grossman, Warren Tolman and then Harvard professor Robert Reich.

On the verge of becoming the first woman elected governor in Massachusetts, O’Brien was badly outspent in the November campaign and lost to millionaire Republican carpetbagger Mitt Romney, by 1,091,988 votes to 985,981 for O’Brien.

Romney, of course, got his ticket punched and left. O’Brien is still here.

She certainly deserves better.

It’s reefer madness.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

State Treasurer Deb Goldberg (Herald file)