Cannabis Beverage Showdown - The insiders vs the market they can’t possibly supply.
Is the gray area working?
Cannabis Beverages are happening. The reason? People like them. A large part of the current market is a product of a legal gray area that allows for hemp derived THC (delta8 and delta9) to be infused and sold in beverages far and wide. Online even. Indie beverage makers are jumping in. And because of the legal grayness, it is keeping the big players out of a market they will surely dominate if and when deregulation happens.
Throw in the legal marijuana industry and current marijuana regulators, both who want more regulation to take this loophole out and bring the category under control, and you have a real showdown.
Make no mistake - we should want these products everywhere alcohol is sold.
Why? Cannabis beverages are significantly less harmful than the alcohol beverages they replace and that is a massive win for societal health and wellness.
Demand is there: Daily marijuana use outpaces drinking for the first time in the US.
Supply is not: dispensaries aren’t conceived to sell beverages. They don’t have aisles, they don’t have refrigerators and there are way too few of them to handle the market.
There are 15,000 dispensaries in the US. They’re mostly small.
There are over a million places that sell alcohol. They’re big and small and everywhere. They already card you.
Is there good reason you should not be able to walk into any bar or liquor store in the US and buy a cannabis beverage if you can buy an alcohol one?
So where is this headed? In the short and medium term, it’ll be up to the locals. Some states, like Minnesota, have legalized the beverages outright and seem to be doing ok with its citizenry enjoying themselves. But many states, cities and counties have various pieces of legislation that will make these products illegal. At the Federal level, the House committee that regulates these things passed an amendment to the farm bill that would make these beverages illegal. If it passes the full congress and becomes law, the current hemp derived industry would cease exist.
Here’s an article breaking down the issues and the players in Missouri. (Shout out to St. Louis Democrat Karla May who is a vocal opponent of any restrictions based on the inability of smaller players to get legal pot licenses)
In the long term, here’s the sensible person's ideal scenario:
The products would be regulated and labeled to make sure they are safely made and for 21+ year olds.
They would be sold wherever alcohol is sold.
Why I’m bullish on this market - Harm-Reduction and Cali-Sober.
Harm-Reduction. On a societal level when you start to dig into the damage drugs and alcohol cost us each year one thing that continually stands out: By many measures alcohol costs us more than opiates (including Fentanyl) combined. But it doesn’t get blamed nearly as much. Deaths, healthcare, suicides, depression, decrease in over-all health and wellness - alcohol is still the king. So if cannabis beverages can functionally do the same thing as alcohol beverages and more people drink them, then the harm goes down.
Cali-Sober. This is coming hot and heavy from the non-alcoholic, recovery, sober-curious, healthier lifestyle side of the market. This is a massive trend. Beverages are meeting these consumers where they already are. Which is drinking beverages. If you believe in the market, it’s the reason this should eventually prevail.
What do you think?
Do you like this T-Shirt?
What this T-Shirt means?
It’s a love letter to our first ever Non Alcoholic craft beer. Probably the very first in the US - produced in October of 2017.