The buzz around THC drinks is going flat

Business Insider

4 days ago

Same drink, different year — and, hopefully, different result. That's Mark Thomas Lynn's approach to the relaunch of Afterdream, a cannabis drink, this year.
His company — the premium spirits and beverage company AMASS Brands Group — originally released its THC-infused formulation in 2021, but they pulled it off the market after about nine months due to legal hurdles around where and how they could sell the drink.
"Even though people were going crazy over the product, we were like, 'Oh my God, this is just too byzantine,'" he says. "The regulations, basically, hadn't caught up." After re-releasing Afterdream in May of this year, AMASS is hoping its second rodeo will be more successful. The regulatory environment is still challenging, but it's not a complete mess, and they think more consumers will give it a shot.
"Customers are much more curious about low-dose and social and non-alcoholic alternatives," Lynn says. "If I have a delicious drink that doesn't floor me, do I reach for that instead of a glass of wine?"
AMASS isn't the only company hoping cannabis beverages will catch on. The booze alternatives have been about to be the next big thing for a while now. The dream among those in the industry has been that they'll soon be flying off the shelves, if not replacing alcohol sales, then at least complementing them. The market is indeed growing. Brightfield Group, a market research firm that follows the cannabis industry, conservatively estimates that hemp-derived THC beverages will reach $571 million in sales this year and $756 million by 2029. But even that ambitious 33% growth rate would leave the category comparatively tiny. The US beer market was worth $117 billion in sales last year. Modelo alone is expected to do $5 billion this year.
"Initially, there was a lot of hype behind drinks but not necessarily a lot of consumer adoption," says Zehner, a research analyst at Brightfield Group.
Drinkmakers and industry analysts have long been confident that cannabis beverages will soon be in refrigerators across America. But whether THC drinks are actually going to take off at a massive scale remains TBD. Legal frameworks are still murky or downright unfriendly, even in some unexpected places. Perhaps more importantly, it's still not entirely clear who these libations are for — alcohol drinkers may be hesitant to swap, marijuana lovers may want something stronger, and some people may have had a bad cannabis experience elsewhere that turned them off. And the taste can be a little funky, too, though it's getting better. Cannabis drinks were supposed to be a rocket, but instead, thus far, they've largely failed to launch.
To briefly set the stage here, bear with me while I get a bit in the weeds about, well, weed. If a cannabis plant has more than 0.3% of the psychoactive compound tetrahydrocannabinol — more commonly known as THC — it's marijuana. If it has 0.3% of THC or less, it's hemp. In the 2018 Farm Bill, a comprehensive piece of legislation renewed every five years, Congress created a loophole legalizing hemp at the federal level, perhaps accidentally. Most of what I'll be talking about in this story are hemp-derived THC drinks that seek to take advantage of this congressional go-ahead, though cannabis drinks with the "regular" stuff exist, too.
Initially, there was a lot of hype behind drinks but not necessarily a lot of consumer adoption.
There's a lot of legalese back-and-forth over the effect of the 2018 Farm Bill, but Elisabeth Stahura, the cofounder and COO of BDSA, a market research firm that focuses on the cannabis industry, says it can be interpreted as anywhere from a "gray area" backdoor to sell hemp products to a definitive blessing for federal legalization. The real can of worms comes at the state level, where rules vary widely in terms of where beverages can be sold, what dosages they can contain, and whether they can be sold at all.
"There have been different approaches to how tightly they are regulated, whether they're regulated, whether it's just kind of a free-for-all," Stahura says.
The risk is probably worth the reward.
Minnesota has been particularly friendly to THC-infused drinks, allowing them to be sold at retailers, restaurants, bars, and liquor stores. Zehner says Texas and Florida have been "hotbeds" for the products, too, though there's been some legal wrangling. Other states have not been so kind to them. Despite legalizing recreational marijuana, California has moved to ban intoxicating hemp products, and Colorado has severely limited them. Leaders in those states say they want to protect their constituents from unregulated products. Also, an obstacle: The states' licensed marijuana industries don't want to face competition from the hemp companies.
If a state has a legal cannabis market, "it probably has limited the sales of hemp-derived THC significantly, if not outright banned it," Zehner says. "Usually, because of some sort of protectionism around their existing cannabis market and not wanting to have those necessarily be undermined."
The regulatory guidelines remain precarious, with threats to legalization at both the federal and state levels. In July, Kentucky Republican Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul clashed over whether to close the farm bill's hemp loophole. In June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott vetoed a bill that would ban THC in the state.
"The regs could still go the wrong way here, and this could be very challenging," Lynn says. "But the risk is probably worth the reward."
Blake Patterson, the chief revenue officer of Keef Brands, which makes THC and cannabis beverages, tells me that he spent much of the day before we spoke trying to decide what to do about new rules in Florida around drink serving sizes on packaging. "We say two servings of five milligrams. It needs to change to just one serving of 10 milligrams," he says. "They keep moving the goalposts."
As much as the legal hurdles may be irksome to the cannabis beverage industry, there are cultural barriers, too. Widespread adoption isn't really happening, at least not yet.
Scott Selix and his wife founded Climbing Kites, a cannabis beverage company, out of their Iowa brewery in 2023. They wanted to create something that caters to America's "can-in-hand culture" but also serves people who aren't drinking alcohol as much. He's been blown away by the uptake but also acknowledges there's a long way to go. "There is an absurd amount of white space here, and I think it's going to take a long time to get where this industry eventually grows to," he says. One problem: many people don't know these products are even available.
"If you ask people and you go out and say, 'Hey, does beer exist?' They say yes. And you say, 'Does wine exist?' They say yes. It's like 99% consumer awareness," he says. "If you ask people, 'Hey, when was the last time you had a THC beverage?' Consumer awareness is really low."
The constituency for cannabis beverages isn't always obvious. Big cannabis connoisseurs don't tend to opt for relatively low-dose drinks, which generally run from 2 mg to 10 mg per can. (Two mg probably won't do much, 10 mg might, depending on your tolerance.) Oftentimes, they want something stronger — it's sort of a beer vs. liquor situation, but one in which few people want the beer-level option. Dispensaries haven't really had an easy time selling them, either. Stahura tells me cannabis drinks are 1-1.5% of total sales in dispensary channels.
"Beverages are difficult to carry for a dispensary where the rest of their inventory is something that's smaller, easier to move, doesn't require refrigeration," she says.
Consumers who prefer alcohol or who don't like marijuana are tough to win over. As much as alcohol is dangerous, it's also ingrained in American culture. Even Gen Z teetotalers are picking up the bottle now. The effects of THC aren't as familiar to many people as, say, a glass of wine.
Aaron Nosbisch, the founder of Brēz, which makes THC-infused drinks and other beverages, says they've had to work to get cannabis-skeptic consumers to get past their negative run-ins with other cannabis products.
"If you ask 10 people if they've tried an edible and they say yeah, and then you ask them again, 'Have you had a bad edible experience?' Like eight out of 10 will say yes," he says. "We call Brēz the antidote to the bad edible experience."
I think the idea that we market this as it fits in where alcohol does all of the time for everybody is not necessarily the route.
He and other modern THC beverage makers have tweaked the science behind the formulations so that they better mimic alcohol. They're using smaller particles now, which means the psychoactive effects hit people faster and also fade away faster. "If you want to disrupt an industry, what you have to do first is meet the industry where it's at, and then you have to find a better solution."
Still, these drinks may make some people nervous, and — like alcohol or coffee — are not for everyone or suitable for every occasion.
"There is a lot of consumer education that we're working on of, like, 'Hey, is this right for you when you're going to sleep? Is this right for you when you're at a bar? Is this right for you when you're at a pool party? For some people, is this right for you when you wake up in the morning and need to work from your home office?" Selix says. "I think the idea that we market this as it fits in where alcohol does all of the time for everybody is not necessarily the route."
There is hope that the lighter hemp-derived THC drinks will finally reach what those in the cannabis industry call the "reclusive soccer-mom" constituency, who, thus far, have been quite nonexistent, Keef's Patterson says. They're the people who, because of the remaining stigma around cannabis, have been too afraid to go into dispensaries. But if they see the drinks in a liquor store or convenience store, they may be more open to giving them a try — and, perhaps, delving into other, higher-dose cannabis products, too.
"If we can start to seed these people with these beverages, it is going to get them at some point in time into our dispensaries," Patterson says. They'll get "canna-curious," he says, and start looking for what's next.
The appeal of cannabis beverages is definitely there. They promise the buzz without the hangover. Consumers view them as healthier. They're getting better in terms of taste. Bigger companies, including Total Wine and DoorDash, are selling and distributing them more.
And where these beverages are widely and easily available, there are signs they're doing well. Minnesota liquor stores have seen their profits boosted partially by THC sales. Nosbisch, from Brēz, tells me they did $1.25 million in sales the year they launched, in 2023, and got to nearly $29 million in 2024. The alcohol industry is getting anxious about the threat of cannabis beverages, and some alcohol companies are even testing the waters with their own products.
"The hemp space has shown that this category, the beverage category, can be successful if it's properly marketed," Patterson says.
All that being said, widespread adoption remains an uphill climb for the cannabis drinks industry. The regulatory landscape is better, but it's still a nightmare. Everyone's sort of holding their breath, hoping they've interpreted the laws right and states won't change their minds too quickly, at least not in the wrong direction.
Consumers seem to be a little bit holding their breath, too. Sure, maybe you'll stick a four-pack or two in the cooler at your BBQ, next to the beer and wine, to see if anybody bites. But if they're all left over at the end of the night, you won't be surprised, either — even if people were passing a joint around all night.