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Welcome Note

Welcome Back Gardeners to the 125th edition of Herbal Profiles!

Happy Friday yall!

This week I have a guest featured story! Leak Kollross from 23rd State took over the newsletter this week!

Fresh news roundup. And more.

-Lars

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News Roundup

• THC beverages gain popularity in South Florida, but new rule could curb growth — A new federal provision set to take effect in November will change how THC limits in hemp beverages are measured, shifting from a percentage-based threshold to a strict cap of 0.4 milligrams of THC per serving. Most THC beverages on the market, including those produced by Florida’s Funky Buddha Brewery, contain between 5 and 10 milligrams per serving, far exceeding the proposed cap. THC beverage sales reached about $1 billion in 2025 and are projected to surpass $3.6 billion by 2030.

• New Jersey Lawmakers Approve Bill To Allow Large-Size Hemp THC Drinks To Be Sold In Liquor Stores — A New Jersey Senate committee advanced legislation sponsored by Senate President Nick Scutari that would allow liquor stores to sell wine-bottle-sized containers of THC drinks containing up to 200 milligrams of total THC until new federal limits take effect November 12. The bill also includes a 10 percent margin of error allowing bottles to contain up to 220 milligrams, and would let certain bars sell hemp beverages for off-premises consumption. The measure passed committee 8-1 and previously advanced out of the Assembly by a 47-20 vote.

• Here’s how a new law will change Minnesota’s cannabis and hemp industries — Gov. Tim Walz signed a sweeping cannabis package that merges parts of Minnesota’s cannabis and hemp supply chains, removes the requirement that hemp businesses shut down before obtaining cannabis licenses, and allows “large-format” THC beverages containing up to 17 servings totaling 85 milligrams of THC. The law also creates a new “macrobusiness” license, raises the investor ownership cap in social-equity cannabis businesses from 10 to 33 percent, and brings back QR codes for product labeling.

• Delaware considers banning or regulating intoxicating hemp products — Delaware lawmakers are weighing two competing bills: one from Rep. Nnamdi Chukwuocha that would align state law with the pending federal ban and route intoxicating THC sales through licensed marijuana dispensaries, and House Bill 401 from Rep. Sean Lynn and Sen. Kyra Hoffner that would create a new hemp-derived cannabinoid retail license under the Office of the Marijuana Commissioner. The Delaware Division of Tobacco and Alcohol Enforcement has sent 70 cease-and-desist letters to businesses selling intoxicating products, while the Brightfield Group reports hemp-derived THC sales grew from $200 million in 2020 to $2.8 billion in 2023.

• Congress Is Unlikely To Prevent A New Federal Ban On Hemp THC Products This Year, Top Marijuana Reform Group Says — Leaders of the Marijuana Policy Project said on a Wednesday Zoom call that Congress is unlikely to undo last year’s hemp ban, which redefines hemp using total THC (including delta-8 and THCA) and limits consumer products to 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container starting November 12. MPP Executive Director Adam Smith said there may be “fiddling around the edges with THC limits and maybe with beverages,” but no broader reversal is expected. MPP staff warned the ban would force many hemp companies to shut down, shift to other products, or operate under federal illegality.

• GOP Lawmakers File Amendments To Prevent Federal Recriminalization Of Hemp THC Products This Year — Three Republican members of Congress filed separate amendments to agriculture appropriations legislation aimed at blocking the November federal hemp ban: Rep. Andy Barr (KY) proposed the “Lawful Hemp Protection Act” to allow up to 1 percent delta-9 THC in finished products with new labeling, age-verification, and tax requirements; Rep. Russell Fry (SC) would delay the ban for two years; and Rep. James Comer (KY) would block federal funds from being used to enforce the ban. The House Rules Committee is expected to decide next week which amendments can advance to floor votes, and President Trump has publicly called on Congress to amend the law to preserve access to full-spectrum CBD products.

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The Brands Doing the Work And What Happens to the Rest of Us If They Don’t

by Leah Kollross, Founder, 23rd State

Lars has written before about hemp’s trust problem. He’s right. And I want to get into the specific shape of that problem, who’s actually trying to fix it, what happens to the category if they don’t, and why a provision buried in a government spending bill is quietly threatening something most operators haven’t thought about yet: the genetics that make their products possible.

But let’s start where I live, which is in the gap between what cannabis brands say and what they can actually prove.

The Claims Problem Is Bigger Than You Think

Every hemp beverage brand in the market right now is making some version of the same promises: fast onset, consistent effects, a cleaner ride than alcohol, predictable dosing. These claims appear on labels, in sell sheets, in investor decks. They are also, in some cases, completely unsubstantiated by independent evidence.

Industry estimates put the number of cannabis beverage manufacturers who invest in any form of real-world product validation at less than 5%. Less than five percent. The rest, and I include myself in this, before I did something about it, are running on internal testing, consumer reviews, and formulation instincts.

This is a problem that compounds quietly. A new consumer who buys a THC beverage based on the onset claims on the label, gets an inconsistent experience, and doesn’t come back, rarely distinguishes between brands when they write off the category. That’s your market share disappearing because of someone else’s unsubstantiated promise. The category’s credibility is shared infrastructure, and most operators are free-riding on it.

Taking the Data Public: Why This Webinar Matters

Generating real-world data is step one. Getting that data in front of the right audiences, consumers, clinicians, researchers, and yes, regulators, is the step many brands skip entirely.

23rd State is not skipping it. On June 4, 2026, NAB & Morebetter are co-hosting a live webinar featuring the findings from our study on Fresh Press and SHAKE, with the Network of Applied Pharmacognosy (NAP), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded by Dr. Miyabe Shields, PhD and Dr. Riley Kirk, PhD, who reach 750,000+ people across their social channels and newsletter. Their audience spans consumers, researchers, clinicians, and industry operators, exactly the people who need to understand what real beverage data actually shows. NAP was also the recruitment and data-promotion partner on the MoreBetter infused beverage study, which means they know this data as well as anyone outside of the research team itself.

The webinar topic is cannabinoids as a substitution and alternative to alcohol, framed, critically, not as “stop drinking and switch,” but as “here’s a real trend and here’s what the data shows.” That framing matters more than it might seem. Dr. Shields and Dr. Kirk specialize in translating complex data into digestible, consumer-legible information without advocacy distortion. The brands featured in the program are featured because they have data relevant to the topic, not because they bought a slot. That distinction is what keeps the content credible and protects participating brands from being painted with the anti-alcohol brush, which is the last thing a category trying to get into mainstream retail needs.

The format is 30–45 minutes with live Q&A, and the recording will be available to registrants for approximately three months post-event. Dr. Shields and Dr. Kirk will also distribute across TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, and their newsletter, meaning the reach extends well past the live audience and well past the event date.

This is what it looks like when operators take their data seriously enough to actually do something with it. If your brand has participated in independent research and you’re sitting on findings that haven’t seen the light of day beyond a press release, that’s a missed opportunity, and in the current regulatory climate, it’s a strategic one. 

What Responsible Operators Are Actually Doing

A handful of brands are taking a different approach. Brēz published 90-day follow-up data from a structured participant study showing dramatic changes in daily behavior among users, 83% reporting daily use, significant reductions in alcohol consumption, and measurable wellness shifts. That’s not marketing copy. That’s data. It changes the conversation with retailers, regulators, and consumers in ways that a compelling label never could.

I enrolled my brand in the MoreBetter Real-World Infused Beverage Study, one of the largest independent studies ever run on THC-infused beverages, now spanning 5,000+ participants and 20 brands across two cohorts, and counting. The category-level findings are meaningful: participants meaningfully reduced daily alcohol use during the study period, a strong majority reported infused beverages felt safer for their health than alcohol, and nearly half were trying an infused beverage for the first time.

But the finding that matters most operationally is quieter: across brands with comparable cannabinoid content and similar formulation approaches, the data revealed measurable, reproducible differences in onset time, consistency, and duration. Not all THC beverages perform the same. And now there’s a dataset large enough to prove it.

For brands that have invested in formulation quality, that’s a competitive advantage that no one can replicate with marketing spend. For brands that haven’t, it’s an approaching reckoning.

What Happens If the Category Doesn’t Get Its Evidentiary Act Together

Here’s the uncomfortable version of this: regulators writing rules for hemp-derived beverages right now, in multiple states, and at the federal level, are doing so largely without independent-generated data to work with. That vacuum doesn’t produce nuanced, evidence-informed frameworks. It produces blunt restrictions built on the absence of information.

When there’s no meaningful data to distinguish a well-formulated, bioavailability-optimized beverage from a sketchy, unlabeled product manufactured with no quality controls, regulators treat them the same. Because from where they’re sitting, they are the same. We handed them that conclusion by not building the evidence base that would have told a different story.

The brands willing to put their products in front of independent scrutiny, to let the data, not the marketing, do the talking, are building the evidentiary foundation the entire category will rely on when those policy conversations mature. The brands that don’t are hoping someone else handles it. 

The Seeds Issue: The Problem Most Operators Aren’t Watching

Here’s where this gets personal in a way most operators may not have fully absorbed yet.

Section 781 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act was signed into law on November 12, 2025, and it fundamentally rewrites how cannabis seeds are classified under federal law. Instead of testing the seed itself for THC content, the new law classifies seeds based on the THC of the mother plant. If the mother plant exceeds 0.3% total THC, which under Section 781 now includes THCA, her seeds are no longer “hemp” under federal law, regardless of whether the seed itself contains any detectable cannabinoids.

The deadline is November 12, 2026. After that date, interstate shipping of seeds from high-THC cannabis genetics becomes federally illegal.

Most hemp beverage operators are watching Section 781 as a product story, will their beverages still be legal? That’s the right question. But there’s a deeper problem downstream. This legislation will impact both seeds and clones, making it illegal to purchase and share cannabis genetics across state lines.

What else am I watching?

Why does that matter for the beverage industry specifically? Because the cannabinoid profiles that make a hemp beverage actually work, the specific threats to minor cannabinoids that produce the THC:CBG ratios, terpene expression, and bioavailability characteristics that distinguish a great formulation from a mediocre one, most of those are synthesized due to their low occurrence in the plant. If interstate movement gets locked down, the genetic diversity that the entire cannabis supply chain depends on starts to calcify inside state lines. Breeders working across state lines to develop and distribute high-performance cultivars lose their ability to operate. The adult-use cannabis industry, which has largely operated in parallel to the hemp beverage space, faces the same supply chain squeeze, and the pressure on genetics that have historically flowed across both markets will be felt everywhere.

Legislative proposals on the table include outright repeal via the American Hemp Protection Act, a three-year delay via the Hemp Planting Predictability Act, and comprehensive federal regulation via the Cannabinoid Safety and Regulation Act, which would establish THC limits, mandatory third-party testing, and standardized labeling requirements. None of these are certain. What is certain is that the window to shape the outcome is open right now and won’t stay that way. 

The Through Line

The brands doing real-world research, building evidentiary records, investing in product validation, they’re not just protecting themselves. They’re building the factual foundation that gives the category a credible argument when the regulatory conversation turns serious. On Section 781, on state-level frameworks, on federal hemp THC limits, the industry’s ability to make a compelling case for nuanced, workable policy depends entirely on whether operators have done the work to generate real data.

The hemp beverage category has crossed a billion dollars. It’s in liquor stores and on bar menus. New consumers are choosing it as a genuine alcohol alternative, often for the first time. That is a remarkable thing to have built on a 0.3% legal threshold and a handful of bioavailability innovations.

It is also entirely fragile if the industry can’t back up its claims when the pressure comes.

The pressure is coming. Some brands will be ready. The rest will be hoping the ones who did the work said enough on their behalf. 

Leah Kollross is the founder of 23rd State, a Minnesota-based cannabis beverage brand, and a member of the NCIA HR Committee and 23rd State is a member of the Board of Directors for the 2026–2028 term.

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