Target Begins Selling THC-Infused Cannabis Drinks As Congress Debates Possible Hemp Law Reversal

Target THC-infused beverages just landed on Minnesota shelves, and the sound you hear is a decades-old stigma cracking under fluorescent lights. Ten stores. A dozen brands—Birdie, Cann, Gigli, Hi Seltzer, Indeed, Señorita, Stigma, Surly, Trail Magic, Wonder, Wyld, Wynk—lined up like a refrigerated referendum on where American taste is headed. It’s a soft launch with hard implications for the hemp-derived THC sector, the cannabis beverage market, and every retailer deciding whether to dip a toe or cannonball into the pool. While Congress toys with the idea of recriminalizing hemp products that contain quantifiable THC, consumers are making their own policy in the aisle: grab a cold one, check the label, and make Friday a little less boozy and a little more botanical.

Industry veterans are calling the move monumental for a reason. The pitch is simple: regulation works. Age-gating at the register. Testing with teeth. Dosing that honors the difference between a tingle and a tidal wave. The same guardrails that turned alcohol into a tightly managed, tax-generating juggernaut can make cannabis beverages both safe and sustainable. And the demand is already loud. Polling shows most Americans now see marijuana as a healthier option than alcohol, and among those who drink cannabis-infused seltzers and spritzers, four in five say they cut back on booze—more than a fifth quit it entirely. Even the old guard is listening. See the nationwide licensing deal where a veterans institution embraced THC drinks as an alcohol alternative, a milestone captured in Top Veterans Group Partners With Cannabis Brand To Promote THC Drinks As Alcohol Alternative At VFW Posts. When the people who’ve seen the worst the world can throw at you choose a different nightcap, that’s not a trend—it’s a turning point.

Minnesota didn’t stumble into this moment. The state wrote a playbook early, opening the door in 2022 for hemp-derived cannabinoids in foods and beverages with clear limits: under 0.3% THC by dry weight, with edibles and drinks capped at 5 mg per serving and 50 mg per package. That bright-line math, coupled with testing and age checks, turned the state into an incubator long before adult-use cannabis arrived. It also signaled something retailers understand instinctively: consistency builds trust. When shoppers know what a 5 mg can feels like, they relax. When producers know the rules won’t evaporate overnight, they invest. It’s no surprise that local entrepreneurs—from lawmakers-turned-founders to craft brewers-turned-formulators—were first in line to convert stainless steel fermenters into THC beverage assembly lines.

But this is all happening in crosswinds. Capitol Hill flirts with zero-tolerance language for hemp-derived THC, even as the industry points to the 2018 Farm Bill and says, we’re just following the map you drew. Corporate America reads the room: some of the country’s biggest employers have already modernized cannabis policies, and retail is testing demand where it lives—on endcaps and in cold cases. In the background, federal cannabis scheduling lurches and stalls, a reminder that process can be its own form of policy inertia, as tracked in DEA Says Marijuana Rescheduling Appeal Process Remains Stalled Under New Administrator Who Pledged To Prioritize The Issue. Enforcement priorities could also shift with political tides; tribal sovereignty and state markets already feel the pressure, a theme echoed in Trump AG Pledges To Review Tribe’s Legal Marijuana Sales As Administration Separately Considers Rescheduling. And if you want a field note on how policy pivots change lived experience, look to patient sentiment next door: Ohio Medical Marijuana Patients Are Less Satisfied With The State’s Program Following Recreational Sales Launch, Survey Shows. Markets don’t shift in theory—they shift in the checkout line.

So what does Target’s pilot really mean? Maybe nothing more than a test of planograms and shrink rates. Or maybe it’s the first domino in a national retail realignment where hemp beverages get the shelf talkers once reserved for craft beer. Either way, the stakes are clear: build a compliant, transparent system that treats adults like adults, or cede the category to confusion and crackdown. Minnesota showed you can write rules with backbone and still leave room for innovation. Shoppers showed they’re ready for a different kind of buzz. The only question is whether regulators and retailers can meet in the middle before the moment passes—and if you’re ready to explore the legal, lab-tested side of this movement, the door’s open at our shop.