Cannabis Beverages at Thanksgiving 2023

How about some cannabis beverages at your Thanksgiving gatherings this year? Maybe your crazy uncle won't get belligerent, because that's just not what happens when you drink a cannabis beverage.

Before you declare your Thanksgiving shopping done, go pick up some cannabis beverages at the dispensary (or gas station, grocery store or liquor store if you're living in a state that realizes this is where social beverage consumption is headed).

Give your guests a new beverage to be thankful for this holiday season.

#normalizethanksgivingweed

Side note - This is also a great way to get high without annoying your entire family with the smoke cloud you bring into the house from your pre and post walks.

Hemp Derived Beverage Availability

Regarding cannabis beverages, I would prefer to see regulators focus on regulating the PRODUCTS to ensure the consumers that desire them have SAFE access to them. Consumers have demonstrated demand for these products. Banning them is not the move.

1. Low dose hemp derived THC beverages everywhere you can buy beer (groceries, gas stations, restaurants, etc.) It’s important to maintain strict policies surrounding packaging and branding to ensure that no products are attractive to children. E.g. NO gummies in this channel obviously.

2. Higher dose, heavily concentrated beverages in the dispensary channel. Liquor and wine stores as the comparison here.

3. Eventually there should be a third channel of even higher doses and targeted at specific outcomes that will be available through the pharmacies.

I'm still forming my opinion so happy to be challenged on any points here.
The category “edibles” altogether needs to be broken up into two categories, food and beverage. Cannabis beverages will deserve their own category shortly. It’s already getting its own day.

This Sunday is 820, NATIONAL DRINK CANNABIS DAY, enjoy a cannabis beverage.

Why Are We Asking Consumers to Memorize Chemical Compounds?

"Look at those terps!"
"Check out those terpene levels"
"This strain has a lot of terps"

I've been in the cannabis industry for years now and I'm getting a little impatient with "Terpenes are the future of how consumers will buy cannabis" theory. I'm constantly hearing how "good" a cannabis product is based on the same vague references to terpenes that are listed in the beginning of this post.

My opinion is that consumers are going to buy based off quality ingredients, consistency, and brand value transparency...not chemical compounds. The "connoisseurs" or "ganjiers", maybe. Maybe.

I want to believe that terpenes will play a big role in cannabis product selection because I'm becoming a bit of a nerd learning cannabis science, especially as it relates to pharmacological use cases. But I am still struggling envisioning the day that I or someone else walks into a dispensary or visits an online store looking for the "linalool" section. We don't have to create our own lexicon and confuse consumers. Lavender, gas, citrus, pine, pepper, etc. These are all words consumers use that they understand. Why are we making this more difficult than it has to be? Why are we asking consumers to memorize chemical compounds?

Buyer’s Club 2 in Hudson, NY

Buyer's Club by On The Revel in Hudson, NY last week was so good. I wish I had more clever words but that's it. The feeling I've had so many times over the past 5 years of "I can't wait until events like this happen in New York" came full circle. The only thing I have to wait for now is the next one.

With so much negative noise right now in cannabis (especially New York) my biggest take away from this event is that we have a strong group here in New York that is going to make this market happen. I am meeting people in the New York market I admire almost every week at this point.

Very important work that Lulu Tsui and Jacobi Holland are doing here in New York for years now. Really exciting to see how their platform is developing as we enter the next phase of our market.

Let's open some doors and then blow them off.

Pace Functional Energy is Here

New cannabis product development is very interesting to me. Finding products that leverage the cannabis plant to enhance different experiences at different times for different people looks like a decade or so of raw product development opportunity. I am still very often finding out about new ways people are using cannabis. A few years back people started telling me about how they were using cannabis during their workouts or to sustain energy and focus throughout the day. This was about the same time I met Adam and Dylan, the founders of Cantrip, and they said they had their sights set on providing a high quality beverage product to this audience of cannabis users. Now they have.

Pace Functional Energy is Here.

Each can of Pace provides 90 mg of caffeine from green tea and 10 mg of THC for that functional buzz. The flavor Dragonberry features electric dragonfruit and sweet strawberry.

Disclaimer: Receptive Capital is an investor in Cantrip.

Why Aren’t More People Talking About Cannabis As A Potential Alternative To Opioids?

Why aren’t more people in cannabis talking about this?

Cannabis is a potential alternative to opioids because it has been shown to be effective at treating pain. From multiple recently published studies, adult use cannabis markets have a measurable positive impact in the fight against the opioid addiction crisis. And it’s a fight worth fighting. “Opioid overdose deaths in the U.S. between 1999 and 2019, nearly 500,000 Americans died from an opioid related overdose (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021).”

In a study recently published in Social Science by Samantha Marinello and Lisa M. Powell states with medical cannabis laws (MCL) saw an 8.5% decrease in opioid prescribing relative to states without MCL. These findings are consistent with previous studies published between 2014-2018 which observed reductions in hospitalizations related to opioid dependence, abuse or overdose.

In a separate study recently published in Health Economics by Shyam R. concluded that states that enacted recreational cannabis laws from 2010-2019 led to a reduction in codeine dispensed at retail pharmacies.

Cannabis as a pain management alternative has ZERO overdose risk and far less addiction risk. So what are we waiting for?

Who is developing cannabinoid-based products that specifically target opioid replacement?

Miss Grass Homecoming in New Jersey

Lots of attention on NY and well-deserved. However there is a very exciting story happening in NJ. Miss Grass, a female-founded, female-led brand, originally launched in CA, is taking the state by storm in homecoming fashion for Kate.

After watching the brand from inception in 2018 as a media + marketplace product focused on consumer education, it was a pleasure to walk into a dispensary on the east coast and purchase some Miss Grass pre-rolls. This is a brand anchored in consumer education on display. Thoughtful, unique design and messaging (recently refreshed). Visually appealing and inviting. The box of matches is a fitting touch. The promise of enhancing your experience or “times” is certainly delivered. NJ being the 5th state the brand has entered successfully, we feel confident saying that while most cannabis brands are talking about it, Miss Grass is actually doing it.

Cheers to the Miss Grass team for actually doing it.

FWIW, the Ascend store in Fort Lee has a pretty thoughtful floor design for consumer education purposes with many approachable displays. I knew exactly what I wanted because I went there specifically to get Miss Grass pre-rolls so I pre-ordered and the pick up process was as simple as it should be. First time using Dispense as well. Sign up was easy. Elegant and clean UX.

Old Pal “Baked At Home” Hits The Mark

This product hits the mark and, in our view, provides validation for the "cannabis will be everywhere" element of our thesis. The cannabis plant is so dynamic and we have decades of product innovation ahead of us. That is what makes the consumer side of this business so attractive to us as investors.

Some people may see this as a "clever product". We see this is as a company who knows their customer base and provides straight forward solutions to their needs in the form of a product. Making your own edibles seems daunting. This product makes it possible.

Cheers to Old Pal for keeping it simple and sensible when it comes to new products. Will this be a big category? We don't think it matters. This is a showcase of cannabis product development, branding and marketing maturing in the cannabis industry and we're very excited about it. And we can't wait to try them...