The mid-2010s was an era of ready-to-drink cocktails, which have been eclipsed in more recent years by so-called “hard seltzers,” fruit-flavored fizzy drinks that were perfect for barbecues and beaches. Now, marijuana drinks may be having their moment.
With recreational marijuana becoming legal in several states, cannabis-infused mocktails, fizzy drinks and non-alcoholic wines are hitting the market, often sold as a shortcut to healthier booze.
These drinks are not the ones that contain small doses of CBD, a substance found in marijuana and hemp that doesn’t get you high and has been all the rage for the last decade. Marijuana drinks are made with THC, the intoxicating substance in cannabis, and customers seem willing to try them.
But doctors and cannabis researchers said that cannabis drinks carry their own set of risks and a long list of questions.
According to BDSA, a Colorado-based market research firm specializing in legal cannabis, dollar sales of marijuana drinks increased about 65% from 2020 to 2021 in the 12 verified states.
In California, the state with the biggest market for cannabis-based drinks, the number of such products available nearly doubled from 2020 to 2021, reaching 747 different items, according to Headset, a company that collects and analyzes data on cannabis.
Pabst, known for Blue Ribbon beer, now sells lemon-flavored “High Seltzer,” a canned cannabis drink that promises “a different kind of buzz.”
Cannabis beverage company Cann calls its carbonated cocktails “social tonics”. It also sells “roadies,” a cannabis-infused drink in ready-to-use foil packets. California-based Rebel Coast Winery produces cans of non-alcoholic sparkling wine infused with 10 milligrams of THC.
Cannabis-infused drinks are often branded as a healthier alternative to alcohol — “No painful days after drinking or regrets,” reads a slogan on the Cann website. These types of drinks carry a health connotation, said Emily Moquin, food and beverage analyst at Morning Consult.
They call themselves “hangover-free” and without the high calories of alcohol; claim to help give “focus”, balance and relaxation. One cannabis beverage company even suggests including your drinks in a spa day.
But experts fear products like cannabis-based drinks are becoming more popular than health research can keep up, leaving big questions about how best to consume them and what impacts they can have on the brain and body.
Wait, are we drinking weed now?
Just a few years ago, the idea of ​​potable cannabis seemed far-fetched, said James MacKillop, director of the Michael G. DeGroote Center for Medical Cannabis Research at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada.
Several previous attempts to invent cannabis drinks have been unsuccessful or unsatisfactory because THC is hydrophobic — put it in water and it will just gooey on the sides of a glass. But in recent years nanoemulsion technology, which can blend cannabinoids smoothly into a fizzy drink or cocktail, has become more widely available.
What are the risks of cannabis-infused drinks?
It’s easy to accidentally consume too much THC.
According to Headset, more than half of cannabis beverage units sold in the United States in 2021 contained 100 mg of THC, an amount that can significantly intoxicate or harm the average person.
By comparison, most edibles are taken in doses of 5 or 10 milligrams, and many popular cannabis drinks contain just that amount. But casual consumers may not know how to interpret the numbers listed on labels.
“If you say to someone, this is an 8% beer, they say, ‘This is a strong beer,'” MacKillop said. “If you tell someone this is a 20mg drink versus a 5mg drink, for a lot of people it’s Greek.”
This is particularly true for people new to cannabis, lured by the prospect of an alternative to alcohol, or who sip on a THC-infused drink without realizing it.
“You can put these things on a counter at a party, and someone says, ‘Oh, watermelon,’ and drinks it — that can cause problems if the person isn’t expecting it,” said Ryan Vandrey, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University. who studies cannabis.
And people who drink alcohol and cannabis in the same session, during a party, could end up “significantly impaired,” MacKillop said — potentially even passing out.
Marijuana can be addictive
Weed also has addictive potential, although studies have shown that fewer people are addicted to marijuana than to alcohol.
About 10% of cannabis users become addicted, while the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 3 adults classify themselves as an “excessive drinker” and 1 in 30 is dependent on alcohol.
The faster a drug kicks in, the greater its potential to cause abuse and addiction, MacKillop said — which raises concerns about cannabis-infused drinks, as they can get you high faster than other cannabis products. Doctors just don’t know enough about these drinks.
Because cannabis-based drinks are so new, they are “an incredibly understudied class of cannabis products,” MacKillop said.
There are still no robust studies on how drinkable cannabis products affect the body in the long term, Vandrey added, and it’s unclear how marijuana’s health effects — positive or negative — translate into a drink.
“The cannabis industry has advanced much faster than information,” he said. “This is just another great example of that.”
Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves
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