When lawmakers passed the 2018 Farm Bill, they didn’t anticipate the THC gold rush it would spark. Thanks to language classifying hemp with a concentration of less than 0.3 percent by weight of THC as hemp—divorced from the Controlled Substances Act—the Farm Bill ushered in a bonanza of hemp-derived THC products, with varying degrees of state-by-state regulation.
As of September 2024, roughly half of U.S. states banned the sale of such products outright or else restricted their sale to dispensaries. In the other half of the country, hemp-derived THC thrives in a regulatory gray area, typically for sale at retailers as mainstream as Total Wine, local bottle shops, and even bars.
Breweries in states that include Minnesota, Illinois, and North Carolina threw their hats into the ring early; many have been making hemp-derived THC beverages for a year or more. The difference between then and now can be summed up in one word: more.