House lawmakers passed legislation Wednesday that overhauls oversight at the beleaguered Cannabis Control Commission, handing the governor of Massachusetts the power to appoint all commissioners while cutting down the number from five to three.

The policy proposal cleared the chamber on a 153-0 vote and came after several years of controversy at the commission, including the ousting of and subsequent legal battle to reinstate former Chair Shannon O’Brien, a litany of internal conflicts, and a damning report from the state’s Office of the Inspector General.

Rep. Daniel Donahue, a Worcester Democrat who co-chairs the Cannabis Police Committee, said the Cannabis Control Commission is making “headlines due to well-publicized personnel and governance issues.”

“Against this backdrop, the cannabis industry continues to mature, facing a myriad of mounting challenges, from raising new capital, to increasing costs, to overregulation, plaguing its ability to grow and thrive,” Donahue said. “Following resignations and removals at the CCC, a report from an inspector general, the speaker charged the Cannabis Committee to look at how best to address the structural challenges inherent in the enabling legislation of the CCC.”

In a major change to the appointing authority for commissioners, House lawmakers approved language that hands the governor the levers to select all three commissioners instead of joint appointments from the treasurer, governor, and attorney general.

Donahue said giving the governor full authority over appointments to the commission will “create more accountability.”

“We figured by bringing it together … under one appointing authority, reducing the number to three, makes it a more nimble body, a more nimble force,” he told reporters before the bill was passed.

Treasurer Deb Goldberg said the Legislature “seems to be looking” at a regulatory structure for the commission “that will draw on approaches that have worked well in other states.”

“This change will create the potential for a more streamlined process that better serves the people of Massachusetts. We are hopeful that any changes will allow the Commission to focus more fully on its core mission,” Goldberg said in a statement.

The bill, crafted by House Democrats, removes the full-time status from nearly all the commissioners. Only the chair of the Cannabis Control Commission would serve full-time, while the remaining two commissioners would work part-time.

The legislation defines the role of the chair of the Cannabis Control Commission as the final authority over personnel and administrative matters, and makes the executive director directly report to the chair instead of the entire commission.

The legislation also boosts the purchase and possession limit from one to two ounces and bars the sale of consumable products containing cannabinoids outside of a licensing structure created by the Department of Public Health.

Rep. Michael Soter, a Bellingham Republican, said boosting the personal possession limit aligns “our laws with practical realities … reducing unnecessary penalties.” The language around cannabinoids will “close the Delta-9 loophole,” he said, referring to a form of THC found in cannabis plants.

“(The loophole) has allowed intoxicating hemp to proliferate the market without proper regulations,” he said.

The House raised the number of cannabis licenses any one individual or entity can hold from three to six. Donahue said lawmakers heard from “many in the industry about the difficulty the cap presents for small and social equity businesses attempting to scale up.”

Businesses licensed by the Cannabis Control Commission to cultivate, manufacture, and sell cannabis to medical marijuana patients will not be required to vertically integrate under the legislation.

Donahue said the “dated” vertical integration of the medical marijuana license is a “cumbersome model” that was inherited from the Department of Public Health’s initial oversight of medical cannabis legalization in 2012.

“Currently, to sell medical, you must grow, manufacture, and retail all in the same license. The costs of setting up a fully vertically integrated model are extremely high and cost-prohibitive for most of the market. And recently, we have seen medical licenses cease to operate. We propose removing this strict vertical model,” Donahue said.