The Group That Spent a Decade Fretting About Cannabis Is Now Trying to Save Hemp THC Drinks — on Its Own Terms

There is an old Washington pattern worth recognizing: industries that spend years opposing something often show up, once that battle is lost, with detailed plans for how the new thing should be structured. The Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America — better known as WSWA — is running a version of that playbook right now on hemp THC beverages, and understanding the history matters if you want to read what’s actually being offered.

From Cautious Neutral to Active Shaper

The WSWA did not always present itself as a cannabis industry ally. As recently as 2016, leaked internal communications obtained by WikiLeaks showed the organization pressing congressional allies to highlight public safety concerns about marijuana legalization, citing Colorado traffic fatality data. The group’s official posture during that era was labeled “neutral” on legalization while emphasizing the dangers of an insufficiently regulated market — a position that read to most cannabis advocates as coded opposition.

By 2023, the WSWA had shifted to something more substantive. The group published a formal set of principles for comprehensive federal cannabis legalization, endorsing a shared state-federal framework modeled on the alcohol system: federal permitting for producers, importers, testing facilities and distributors; product approval processes; excise tax collection; and public safety measures. The document was serious and detailed. It was also conspicuously silent on hemp-derived THC beverages specifically.

That silence ended in 2025. As the hemp beverage market surpassed what analysts estimate was $2 billion in annual sales — with THC-infused drinks appearing in grocery chains, convenience stores, and major alcohol retail accounts — the WSWA launched an active Capitol Hill lobbying campaign calling for hemp THC drinks to be preserved through federal regulation rather than eliminated by the November 12, 2026 ban that Congress had already set in motion.

The organization’s proposal includes: federal supplier and distributor licensing for hemp beverage companies; mandatory testing and labeling standards; a prohibition on synthetic hemp-derived THC (a provision that would exclude many hemp-adjacent products); age verification requirements; and, critically, state authority to regulate distribution and retail — meaning the same patchwork of state-level access rules and distributor relationships that governs wine and spirits today.

It is worth saying clearly: opposing the November ban is the right position. The hemp beverage market represents legal employment, legitimate consumer demand, and a category that has, for many users, become a genuine alternative to alcohol. A blanket federal prohibition would be a poorly designed hammer striking a large and diverse market. Any credible ally fighting that outcome deserves acknowledgment.

But the WSWA’s preferred replacement is not a blank slate. It is their house.

What Three-Tier Distribution Actually Means for Small Operators

The three-tier alcohol distribution system has governed the American beverage market since Prohibition’s repeal in 1933. It mandates separation between producers (breweries, distilleries, wineries), distributors, and retailers — a structure designed originally to prevent the vertical integration and tied-house abuses that had characterized pre-Prohibition saloon culture.

For the established alcohol industry, the system works well. For independent producers trying to enter the market, it has historically been a significant structural barrier.

The craft beer industry learned this at significant cost. Beginning in the 1970s and 1980s, state-level franchise laws — which gave distributors near-permanent rights to a brand’s territory once a contract was signed — became one of the most significant obstacles facing small and mid-size craft breweries. Once a brewery signed with a distributor in a given state, breaking that relationship often required expensive legal proceedings. Large distributors favored large brands; small craft breweries with limited volume frequently found themselves deprioritized, under-promoted, or unable to efficiently exit a poor distributor relationship. Decades of state-by-state reform efforts have carved out exceptions — brewpubs, taproom direct sales, self-distribution rights in some states — but the three-tier architecture remains deeply embedded and, in most states, remains the default.

An analogous framework applied to hemp beverages would impose immediate and substantial compliance costs on the independent brands that built this category. Federal licensing requirements, distributor tier mandates, state-by-state approval processes, and excise tax infrastructure represent barriers that a well-capitalized alcohol conglomerate can absorb easily and a two-person hemp beverage startup cannot.

The WSWA represents the distributor tier. Its members have existing relationships with state regulators. They have warehouses, trucks, compliance departments, and licensing already in place. If hemp THC drinks get folded into an alcohol-style distribution requirement, the WSWA’s members become the necessary middlemen. That is not a coincidence — it is the architecture.

What Hemp Operators Actually Want

It would be misleading to characterize the entire hemp beverage industry as uniformly resistant to alcohol-style regulation. Some established hemp brands with significant retail distribution — brands that have grown alongside alcohol industry partners — have signaled openness to a framework that includes 21+ age verification, standardized testing, and serving size limits. Ryan Evans, co-founder of Shift Naturals, put it directly in a statement supporting Sen. Ron Wyden’s hemp beverage regulation bill: “Responsible brands want clear guardrails: strict 21+ access, certified lab testing, uniform serving sizes, and a ban on synthetics.”

That is not opposition to regulation. It is a preference for regulations that address consumer safety without mandating a distribution architecture designed by and for incumbents.

The critical question hemp operators have raised about the WSWA framework is whether three-tier distribution should be a federal mandate or a market choice. Craft breweries fought for decades in various states to win the right to self-distribute in limited contexts. Hemp brands would prefer the same optionality — a federal framework that establishes product standards and consumer protection requirements without dictating which tier of the supply chain controls market access.

Alternative legislative paths exist. Sen. Wyden’s reintroduced Hemp Consumer Products Act would establish federal safety standards for hemp-derived products, including THC beverages, without mandating wholesale distribution through alcohol-industry channels. Similar frameworks have been proposed in various forms that would bring hemp beverages under FTC and FDA-style oversight without requiring the WSWA’s members to become the distribution chokepoint.

SAFE Banking, while primarily addressing cannabis banking access rather than hemp distribution, represents a model for how Congress can create a workable federal framework without simply handing new categories to incumbent gatekeepers.

The Familiar Shape of This Moment

There is a version of this story that has played out in cannabis policy before, usually without happy endings for the smaller players. A category emerges. Independents build it, largely through hustle and tolerance for regulatory ambiguity. The category grows large enough to attract serious market attention. Established incumbents arrive with resources, relationships, and regulatory proposals. The proposals, examined closely, tend to encode the incumbents’ advantages.

The WSWA is a sophisticated organization. Its 2023 cannabis principles showed genuine policy engagement, not simply defensive posturing. Its current hemp beverage campaign reflects real market intelligence — the group understands what is at stake and has clearly done the work to understand the regulatory landscape.

But hemp beverage brands should read the proposal carefully before celebrating the cavalry’s arrival. Total Wine & More — one of the country’s largest alcohol retail chains — has separately registered to lobby on hemp-derived beverages. The Beer Institute and the American Beverage Licensees have both weighed in with alcohol-style regulatory preferences. The consensus forming in Washington around hemp THC beverages is increasingly an alcohol industry consensus.

November 12 is real. The ban is real. The hemp beverage industry needs allies with the lobbying weight to stop it, and the WSWA has that weight. These are not abstract concerns — they are a genuine deadline with genuine consequences.

But stopping a ban and designing what comes next are two different contributions. Independent hemp operators would be wise to accept the first while negotiating hard on the second. Getting rescued by a framework that hands distribution control to the same industry that spent years watching cannabis with suspicion is a version of winning that deserves more scrutiny than relief.

Ethan Vale covers federal cannabis policy and regulation for CannabisInquirer.com.