“Florida doesn’t need to wait for Washington to show what responsible regulation looks like.”
By Dani Baranowski, Florida Hemp Beverage Coalition
In Umatilla, Florida, my grandmother’s friends unwind over a game of spades with a low-dose THC drink in hand. My friends in their thirties are reaching for the same drinks for different reasons. Some are cutting back on alcohol, and some have quit booze entirely but still want to go out and have a good time.
They’re not alone. From The Villages to Tampa Bay to Miami, Florida adults are picking up hemp beverages at neighborhood stores, restaurants and bars, under the legal framework state legislators put in place in 2019.
NielsenIQ found that 28 percent of U.S. adults have tried a cannabis-infused drink, and 50 percent say they’re interested in trying one. Whatever their reasons, all of them should be free to choose these drinks when they meet the state’s testing and labeling rules, and are held to Florida’s safety standards.
What most of them don’t know is that Washington is about to take that choice away.
In November of last year, Congress rewrote the federal definition of hemp inside a spending bill. Starting on December 11, any
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