Filed under industry news — July 14, 2026. This article is commentary and general information, not legal advice.
Something quietly significant happened in cannabis policy this week: a prominent hemp industry leader publicly asked the marijuana industry to stop fighting hemp — and start writing rules with it.
In a July 13 op-ed for Marijuana Moment, Morgan Tweet — co-founder and CEO of IND HEMP and executive director of The Hemp Feed Coalition — argued that hemp and marijuana businesses should unite around a single national regulatory framework that protects consumers and supports farmers, instead of spending 2026 trying to regulate each other out of existence.
If you drink, sell, or make hemp-derived THC beverages, this is worth five minutes of your attention. Here's why.
The argument in a nutshell
Tweet's case rests on a few uncomfortable truths. Regulated cannabis operators have spent the past year lobbying for stricter hemp restrictions — while some of the same companies quietly invest in hemp brands, because they can read the sales data like everyone else. Consumer demand for low-dose, hemp-derived drinks is real, and as Tweet puts it, "the real question is what framework should govern it."
Her second point is one the beverage world knows well: prohibition doesn't erase demand — it just pushes it somewhere darker. Wipe legal hemp products off shelves, and many customers won't walk into a dispensary; they'll buy untested products from unregulated corners of the internet. That outcome damages trust in every cannabinoid product, licensed or not.
The op-ed points to a draft bill — the Goodness of Hemp Act — as a starting framework: prohibit inhalable hemp products (leaving that category to licensed dispensaries), draw clearer lines between hemp and marijuana based on THC concentration and intended use, and set real consumer-protection guardrails in place of today's ambiguity.
Why beverages are the biggest winner in a unified framework
Read that framework again and notice what it doesn't target: drinks.
1. Beverages are the model citizens of hemp. The compromise everyone keeps sketching — no inhalables, low per-serving doses, age gates, lab testing, honest labels — describes exactly what the best THC beverage brands already do voluntarily. The 21-plus brands we carry publish certificates of analysis, cap doses at sessionable levels, and label in milligrams, not mystery. A framework that "rewards compliance," in Tweet's words, rewards the beverage category first.
2. Clear rules unlock the boring-but-critical infrastructure. Regulatory ambiguity is why hemp beverage companies still wrestle with payment processing, advertising restrictions, and banking. Every mainstream platform and processor that hesitates on hemp points to the same thing: unsettled law. A durable national framework — not another one-year extension buried in an appropriations bill — is what finally lets this category operate like the beverage business it is.
3. It's the credible alternative to the November cliff. The elephant in the room is the federal provision taking effect November 12, 2026, which limits hemp products to levels that would pull most THC drinks as we know them off the shelf. Tweet notes that some cannabis operators see that deadline as a chance to simply eliminate hemp competition. An industry-backed framework gives Congress a serious, consumer-safety-first alternative to a cliff-edge ban — and as she writes, "Congress has already signaled that the status quo is unlikely to continue." The question is what replaces it: a workable rulebook, or a void.
4. One rulebook beats fifty. Today's state-by-state patchwork — bans in some states, milligram caps in others, silence elsewhere — is confusing for drinkers and brutal for small brands. A national framework with uniform testing, labeling, and age-verification standards would let good products travel, and let shoppers in Ohio trust a can the same way shoppers in Florida can.
What this means for you (the person holding the can)
Nothing changes on shelves today. But the direction of the conversation matters. When hemp leaders propose giving up inhalables, embracing age limits, and locking in testing standards, they're describing a future in which the hemp beverage aisle looks less like a legal gray zone and more like the craft-beer aisle: regulated, labeled, boring in all the right ways.
That's the future we want. It's why we only carry brands that already behave as if that rulebook exists — lab-tested, clearly dosed, honestly labeled, 21+ only.
The bottom line
The hemp-versus-marijuana turf war has always been a strange fight: two industries selling the same molecule to overlapping customers, each pretending the other shouldn't exist. Tweet's op-ed says the quiet part out loud — "prohibition solves less than expected" — and offers a path where compliant products win regardless of which side of the THC line they come from.
For the hemp beverage niche, that path isn't a threat. It's the growth plan.
Read the full op-ed at Marijuana Moment.
21+ only. Hemp-derived and 2018 Farm Bill compliant. Enjoy responsibly.