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Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Action News Jax Investigates: The buzz and controversy around THC-infused beverages
THC beverages are quickly growing in popularity, estimated to become a $4 billion industry in three short years. Action News Jax Investigates learned the buzz behind the beverages comes with a mix of confidence, controversy, and concern. We were able to stop by an ABC Fine Wine & Spirits in St. Johns to check out drinks infused with THC. There was a large variety of drinks and flavors. The drinks also noted they contained zero alcohol. In fact, many THC beverages are marketed as an alternative to alcohol. Gina Collins is the Chief Marketing Officer for cannabis company Trulieve. 'We are seeing for the first time, at least in my lifetime, younger generations move away from alcohol. And so with that, I think that the THC beverage space is filling that gap,' Collins said. In February, Trulieve launched its own beverage line called Onward, made with THC and CBD. 'People are looking for a more functional way to unwind that meets their health and wellness goals at the same time,' Collins said. The drinks we found at ABC contain 'hemp-derived' Delta-9 THC. Delta-9 THC is the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis plants that makes you feel 'high' or relaxed. The 2018 federal Farm Bill defined hemp as any part of the cannabis plants with less than 0.3% Delta-9 THC by dry weight. While the FDA has not approved THC or CBD to be added to food or sold as dietary supplements, the Farm Bill legalized hemp and products made from it. That led to a surge of THC products and beverages hitting the market. Ellen Snelling is the Hillsborough County Anti Drug Alliance Board Chair. 'All of these hemp products, they're THC to me. This whole hemp industry with the intoxicating cannabinoids, it seems like it's a backdoor to recreational legalization,' Snelling said. Snelling has spent years pushing Florida lawmakers to crack down. 'I would rather see all of these products, honestly, under the medical marijuana system because it's well-regulated, everything's tested in a lab, we feel much more confident of what these products are,' Snelling said. Recent hemp regulation bills in the Florida House and Senate that included putting caps on the amount of THC allowed in drinks and restrictions on where it could be sold, didn't make it out of session. Another concern: colorful packaging and fruity flavors possibly appealing to kids. Dr. Dawn Sollee is director of the Florida Poison Information Center and says her team has taken calls about children drinking THC beverages. 'They might get wobbly, they would be uncoordinated, they might fall, things like that. If they happen to get into some of the other products or drink more of them, then we start worrying about, especially in children, that it can even progress to seizures,' Sollee said. Sollee said her agency does not pick sides in the THC debate. Instead, their focus is on educating the public to make sure adults are storing and consuming products responsibly. 'The main goal is try and keep it out of their reach. And the other thing is with adults, when they're using a product, a child, a lot of times they'll try and imitate them. So if they see you drinking the product, that's going to make them want to go and drink it too. So if you can, try and not consume the product in front of them,' Sollee said. [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Manufacturers recommend adults who want to try THC-infused drinks start with a low dose and pace themselves. That's because the milligrams of THC per serving can vary between products and the effects can kick in anywhere from 10 minutes to a couple of hours. 'The key is patience and learning for yourself. 'Cause it really will impact everyone differently, and it's a personal choice of where you want the balance to be,' Collins said. 'It's such a new product, there's not enough research on it. People don't know what to expect, but it can have adverse effects, especially on your, like I said, your heart rate and impairment levels and possibly mental health effects,' Snelling said. [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] In this new frontier of adult beverages, it's up to customers to get informed and determine if they want to skip or sip. 'Make sure that they're researching the products, know where the, what the ingredients are, where they're coming from, and really sticking to that mindset of I'm gonna do, I'm gonna educate myself and learn how my body reacts to this,' Collins said. Collins said Trulieve uses a third-party lab to batch test its products and posts those results online. In the meantime, Snelling is amping up her education of parents and teachers when it comes to THC drinks and plans to keep fighting for tougher laws in Florida. Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Hemp-infused drinks gain popularity: Florida lawmakers fight to curb underage drinking
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Matthew Wetzel owns LGH Dockside Dispensary in Clearwater Beach. His son was diagnosed with a very rare seizure disorder at just 2 years old. 'He would just heat up, heat up, heat up, until he would end up [having seizures] and he never did, but he could pass away,' Wetzel said. 'Democrats need to take stronger stance': Floridians voice concerns over DOGE at town hall Doctors told Wetzel his son was going to die. But then he discovered CBD products. 'Cannabidiol was the only thing that could help him,' he said. Now Wetzel sells hemp products to help people just like his son who is now 13 years old. For years, he has been fighting for better regulations. That's something Polk County Sen. Colleen Burton is also fighting for. 'We have a tightly regulated medical marijuana market, and we have a heavily unregulated hemp market in Florida today,' she said. Burton introduced a bill this week that would limit THC levels in hemp products to 5 milligrams per serving and 50 milligrams per package. It would also ban Delta 8, Delta 10, and synthetic products. You can read the bill in full below. PDF-1Download 'Delta 8 and Delta 10 are synthetic,' Wetzel said. 'We have no idea.' 'We don't have enough research on how it can react with the body once it's consumed,' he continued. The bill would also require any place selling hemp-infused drinks to have a liquor license. Charles Bailes is CEO of ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, the largest liquor retailer in Florida. He said hemp-infused beverages are becoming more and more popular. 'They're selling well everywhere in Florida, especially in the Villages, Destin, Fort Myers, Tampa, Orlando,' he said. 'I cannot describe to you what the consumer looks like because they look like you and they look like me.' Bailes says the best way to resolve the issue of underaged people getting their hands on these THC drinks is to restrict sales to places where you have to be 21 or older to enter. 'THC beverages are intoxicating and should be restricted and regarded as such,' he said. But that is where Wetzel draws the line. 'You should be able to come to a dispensary and get your cannabis opposed to a liquor store,' he said. 'We're trying to limit that.' 'If you're going to a liquor store, you're combining something that's very deadly, which is alcohol with cannabis,' Wetzel continued. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
08-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Hemp regulations hazy after House workgroup wraps up its business
Video display of questions the House working group on hemp asked at the end of their three-day workshop on March 6, 2025 (Photo by Mitch Perry/ Florida Phoenix) The combined Florida House workgroup formed to study the hemp industry concluded its final meeting Thursday with two main conclusions: They agreed they did not want to make any moves that might kill what has emerged as a multi-billion-dollar industry in the Sunshine State. But they also determined that Florida has to change the status quo in regard to how the product is regulated. The 24-member group, chaired by Escambia County Republican Michelle Salzman, was charged by House Speaker Danny Perez to 'gain knowledge and understanding of the subject matter' and not to make legislative recommendations. The panel heard testimony, some of it jarring, from industry experts, regulators, and entrepreneurs. Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, whose department oversees the hemp industry, kicked off the meetings this week when he said that while the hemp market is complicated, the facts surrounding it aren't. 'From my experience, the debate and advocacy often does not rely on the facts,' he said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Federal law defines the hemp plant as having less than 0.3% THC, the primary psychoactive ingredient in cannabis. Hemp can produce cannabinoids that have intoxicating effects similar to THC in cannabis. But while medical marijuana is strictly regulated in Florida since it became legalized years ago, hemp isn't, leading to repeated claims heard this week that the landscape for the product was essentially 'the wild, wild west.' 'I'm not a huge regulation guy, but I think it's an area where we need more regulation … ,' said Southeast Republican Rep. Toby Oberdorf. 'You can have a bag of gummies from hemp that's actually stronger than a bag of gummies from THC, which we legalized here in the state of Florida with a prescription.' Central Florida Republican Richard Gentry said what concerned him most was the proliferation of hemp-derived THC-infused drinks now being sold in stores like ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, the largest liquor store chain in Florida. Those drinks are not alcoholic but are still intoxicating. Chas Bailes, president and CEO of ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, told the committee that his stores have begun stocking those drinks due to consumer demand over the past six months. The maximum dosage in the drinks sold in his stores is 10 milligrams of THC. Some beverages on the market can contain as much as 100 milligrams. Surprising public testimony came from a testing lab owner who said his recent testing of hemp-derived products found a majority of them above that 0.3% THC limit. George Fernandez is founder and CEO of Modern Canna Labs, a Lakeland laboratory contracted with the Florida Department of Agriculture to test cannabis and hemp products. He testified that over the past two quarters, his lab tested 50 out of 53 flower hemp samples from different smoke/hemp shops across the state that were over the 0.3% Delta 9 THC limit. All told, out of the 111 hemp samples his lab tested, 64% failed (a total of 71). He added that he also found contaminants in these products. Perhaps most alarming, 49 out of 111 (44%) of the samples failed for pesticides. Sixteen of the samples (14%) failed for microbials, and five out of the 111 samples (or 4.5%) failed for heavy metals. 'I'm in shock right now,' Salzman responded. Fernandez said that a lot of the products sold in Florida are tested by out-of-state laboratories, using different testing processes and parameters. 'I think labs here are held to a higher standard,' he said. The 2018 U.S. farm bill legalized hemp production, creating a large new industry in Florida (and across the country). It led to the development of products like Delta-8 and other cannabinoids derived from hemp plants. That's led to states across the country enacting their own regulations over the past few years, in some cases banning all intoxicating hemp products period. Dr. Gillian Schauer with the Cannabis Regulators Association appeared remotely from Colorado to give lawmakers a detailed view of how different states are working to regulate the product. She listed some questions that legislators need to consider: What kind of market do you want for cannabinoids? Which cannabinoids do you want consumers to have access to? Should there be limits on the amount of intoxicating cannabinoids they can purchase in a serving? Should they tax the product? I'm not a huge regulation guy, but I think it's an area where we need more regulation ... . You can have a bag of gummies from hemp that's actually stronger than a bag of gummies from THC, which we legalized here in the state of Florida with a prescription. – Rep. Toby Oberdorf. Polk County Republican Sen. Colleen Burton pushed through proposals to regulate hemp in both the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions. The 2023 bill was stripped of the provisions that the hemp industry decried but did include a prohibition on the sale of hemp-extract products intended for human ingestion to anyone under 21. It also required that packaging of such products not be considered attractive to children. In 2024, the Legislature passed a bill (SB 1698) that banned all Delta-8 products in the state and restricted Delta-9 THC levels in hemp products to 5 milligrams per serving and 50 milligrams per container. Gov. DeSantis vetoed the measure last June following heavy lobbying from the hemp industry. But the governor said in his veto letter that he was encouraging the Legislature to reconsider the topic during the 2025 session. 'Sensible, non-arbitrary regulation will provide businesses and consumers alike with much-needed sensibility — safeguarding public health and safety, allowing legitimate industry to flourish, and removing bad actors from the market,' he wrote. For the third year in a row, Burton has filed comprehensive legislation regulating hemp (SB 438) which includes limiting the amount of THC to 5 milligrams per serving and 50 milligrams per container and limiting THC-infused beverages to no more than 5 milligrams per unopened can or bottle. Duval County Democratic Sen. Tracie Davis has filed her own version, as well, which would limit the amount of THC to 2 milligrams per serving and 20 milligrams per container. Meanwhile, Republicans Hillary Cassel (HB 601) and Dana Trabulsky (HB 1597) have filed corresponding measures in the House. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Miami Herald
27-01-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
A two-story liquor store is opening in Florida. Here's what to know about the plans
ABC Fine Wine & Spirits is expanding its Florida footprint — and it will be vertical. The Orlando-based liquor store chain is planning a two-story ABC Fine Wine & Spirits near Bradenton in Oalmetto, according to Manatee County building records. County plans say the store will span nearly 11,000 square feet, about a quarter of the size of a Publix, across the two floors. ABC Liquors Inc., the parent company, bought a vacant lot, where the store is being built, for $1.3 million in March, according to Manatee County property records. ABC filed paperwork in July that detailed plans for the new store. The application said customers will shop on the first floor, and the second floor will be for merchandise and a freight elevator. The property is located just north of the Shoppes at Moccasin Wallow plaza that includes Gianni's Pizza Express, which opened in August, and Corporate Ladder Brewing Company. Records said the construction of the new ABC Fine Wine & Spirits store would take about six months to complete. When did ABC begin? ABC Fine Wine & Spirits began as a bar and package store in 1936 after prohibition ended, according to company history. Jack Holloway founded the first store at the corner of North Orange Avenue and Wall Street in downtown Orlando, company history said. The original name was Jack Holloway's Friendly Neighborhood Bar. Eventually, the company changed its name to ABC Liquors and again with the current iteration of ABC Fine Wine & Spirits, according to company history. There are more than 125 ABC Fine Wine & Spirits located throughout Florida, including Miami-Dade and Broward..
