“The industry cannot ask for nuanced, evidence-informed regulation while simultaneously declining to produce the evidence that would make that possible.”
By Leah Kollross, 23rd State
Cannabis beverages are one of the fastest-growing segments in the hemp and cannabis marketplace, and one of the most structurally vulnerable to regulatory backlash. The reason has less to do with the products themselves, and has everything to do with the fact that most operators in this space cannot prove their products do what they claim.
That’s not an indictment of any single brand. It’s a category-wide failure of accountability, and with federal hemp policy still unsettled and state-level frameworks actively being written, it’s a failure the industry can no longer afford to ignore.
The Problem Isn’t That The Products Don’t Work. It’s That We Can’t Prove They Do.
Look at any cannabis or hemp beverage brand’s marketing and you’ll find the same vocabulary: fast onset, consistent effects, a cleaner alternative to alcohol, harm reduction benefits, mood support. These are real attributes for well-formulated products. They are also almost universally unsubstantiated.
Industry estimates suggest fewer than 5 percent of cannabis beverage manufacturers invest in any form of independent product validation. The rest are operating on
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