OH FFS's
Pot companies really want weed drinks to catch on. It’s not that surprising—the people investing millions (or even billions) into the legal weed industry aren’t cannabis enthusiasts, they’re capitalists looking to make money, and every good capitalist knows farmers don’t make a lot of money. The further you process a product into something other than its raw ingredients, the more you can charge for it. The barley farmer doesn’t make as much money as the baker, and both make less than a well-capitalized brewer.
Which brings us to the point of this post: Beer companies are pouring billions of dollars into the weed industry, with some executives claiming pot drinks will soon replace joints, or at least make a sizable dent in the overall pot market.
But that has yet to happen.
After five years of legal pot sales in Washington State, drinks are still a tiny fraction of the market. Only $13.8 million of drinks were sold in Washington in 2018, according to Washington’s weed industry sold nearly $2 billion of products in 2018. When Headset, a local data firm, averaged drink sales across Washington, Colorado, and Nevada, they found that drinks made up just 1.28 percent of all pot sales in June of this year.
Those mini-fridges that showed up in legal weed stores four years ago are still just that—mini-fridges with a couple dozen drinks in them that customers rarely reach for.
Why are the biggest pot businesses in the world still trying to turn weed drinks into a thing when customers don’t seem to be biting? Rolling Stone columnist Amanda Chicago Lewis explored this in a recent story for the Verge that had her drinking weed at Coachella, exploring a 120,000-square-foot cannabis bottling factory in Canada that turned out to be “really just an empty box,” and schmoozing at a $40,000 party in Napa Valley celebrating a new weed rosé that a guest describes as a “Marlborough sauvignon blanc.” Chicago Lewis eventually discovers that this corporate-created "anti-trend" might have more to do with the current economics of alcohol than anything about cannabis:
I discovered the reality is that Big Beer is going after pot drinks because its own industry has been in slow, steady decline for two decades. First, cocktails and wine grew more accessible, chipping away at beer’s market share. Then, craft breweries led a revolution against domestic lager juggernauts like Budweiser and Miller Lite. Now, with Americans increasingly concerned about the negative health implications of drinking and legalized cannabis poised to take a huge bite out of the recreational intoxication consumer spending pie, giant beer companies are trying to maintain their lucrative dominance over how we turn up and wind down.
I agree with this analysis—weed beverages feel much more like a reflexive stock-market impulse rather than artisans trying to create new products. I would add one more detail, though. These companies might stumble into creating a sustainable beverage product category if they get away from high-THC products. Like I said two years ago and Katie Herzog said this spring, people who already like bong rips aren’t likely to replace those with drinks, especially when we have amazing smoke-free vape products. But what if weed beverages were not intended to produce a heavy stoning, but instead used for microdoses of THC or doses of other rare cannabinoids?
Chicago Lewis’s reporting found that Canada’s billion-dollar pot companies don’t seem to be thinking about these compounds, but what if there were drinks filled with mood-elevating CBG, or energizing THCV, or anti-nasuea Delta-8 THC, or sedating CBN? That’s something I could drink to. Another 100 milligrams of THC? I’ll pass.

Pot companies really want weed drinks to catch on. It’s not that surprising—the people investing millions (or even billions) into the legal weed industry aren’t cannabis enthusiasts, they’re capitalists looking to make money, and every good capitalist knows farmers don’t make a lot of money. The further you process a product into something other than its raw ingredients, the more you can charge for it. The barley farmer doesn’t make as much money as the baker, and both make less than a well-capitalized brewer.
Which brings us to the point of this post: Beer companies are pouring billions of dollars into the weed industry, with some executives claiming pot drinks will soon replace joints, or at least make a sizable dent in the overall pot market.
But that has yet to happen.
After five years of legal pot sales in Washington State, drinks are still a tiny fraction of the market. Only $13.8 million of drinks were sold in Washington in 2018, according to Washington’s weed industry sold nearly $2 billion of products in 2018. When Headset, a local data firm, averaged drink sales across Washington, Colorado, and Nevada, they found that drinks made up just 1.28 percent of all pot sales in June of this year.
Those mini-fridges that showed up in legal weed stores four years ago are still just that—mini-fridges with a couple dozen drinks in them that customers rarely reach for.
Why are the biggest pot businesses in the world still trying to turn weed drinks into a thing when customers don’t seem to be biting? Rolling Stone columnist Amanda Chicago Lewis explored this in a recent story for the Verge that had her drinking weed at Coachella, exploring a 120,000-square-foot cannabis bottling factory in Canada that turned out to be “really just an empty box,” and schmoozing at a $40,000 party in Napa Valley celebrating a new weed rosé that a guest describes as a “Marlborough sauvignon blanc.” Chicago Lewis eventually discovers that this corporate-created "anti-trend" might have more to do with the current economics of alcohol than anything about cannabis:
I discovered the reality is that Big Beer is going after pot drinks because its own industry has been in slow, steady decline for two decades. First, cocktails and wine grew more accessible, chipping away at beer’s market share. Then, craft breweries led a revolution against domestic lager juggernauts like Budweiser and Miller Lite. Now, with Americans increasingly concerned about the negative health implications of drinking and legalized cannabis poised to take a huge bite out of the recreational intoxication consumer spending pie, giant beer companies are trying to maintain their lucrative dominance over how we turn up and wind down.
I agree with this analysis—weed beverages feel much more like a reflexive stock-market impulse rather than artisans trying to create new products. I would add one more detail, though. These companies might stumble into creating a sustainable beverage product category if they get away from high-THC products. Like I said two years ago and Katie Herzog said this spring, people who already like bong rips aren’t likely to replace those with drinks, especially when we have amazing smoke-free vape products. But what if weed beverages were not intended to produce a heavy stoning, but instead used for microdoses of THC or doses of other rare cannabinoids?
Chicago Lewis’s reporting found that Canada’s billion-dollar pot companies don’t seem to be thinking about these compounds, but what if there were drinks filled with mood-elevating CBG, or energizing THCV, or anti-nasuea Delta-8 THC, or sedating CBN? That’s something I could drink to. Another 100 milligrams of THC? I’ll pass.