A funding-bill provision caps THC at 0.4mg per container, a fraction of the doses now sold as an alcohol substitute in mainstream US stores
Congress has set a November deadline that could gut America’s hemp-derived THC drinks market. A provision buried in a 2025 government funding bill caps total THC at 0.4 milligrams per container from Nov. 12, 2026. That is a fraction of the 5mg to 10mg doses common in mainstream cans today.
The category has grown fast enough to worry brewers. Trent Mooring, who founded North Carolina’s Kaya brand in 2024 after building a craft beer and seltzer business, says sales tripled over the past year once a major supermarket chain agreed to stock the cans. Euromonitor put the hemp-derived intoxicating beverage market at roughly $239 million in 2023 and rising fast, before the industry’s own newer estimates pushed toward $1 billion this year.
The growth tracks a broader US retreat from alcohol. Just 54% of Americans say they drink, Gallup’s lowest reading since it started asking in 1939. Retailers have positioned THC drinks as direct substitutes, not novelties: at a North Carolina Fourth of July brunch, a bottle of Willie’s Remedy+ sat next to the beer and mimosas, and one guest said the cans have replaced his and his wife’s evening wine.
That substitution is exactly what the new cap threatens. There is no reformulation path at 0.4mg that preserves a perceptible effect, which leaves retailers who built THC sections next to their no-and-low shelves facing a hard compliance date with no product to sell past it.
Trade groups are pushing back. The Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America has called the current approach a “missed opportunity,” arguing prohibition pushes consumers toward unregulated online sellers instead. Mooring wants regulation rather than repeal: dosage limits and age verification, modelled on alcohol rules.
The timing lands as African markets watch their own moderation category accelerate from the other direction. Close to a million South Africans now reach for a non-alcoholic beer, cider or gin weekly, up from 666,000 a year ago, and continental brewers are treating no-and-low as a structural bet rather than a promotional cycle.
Whether Congress revises the cap before November will decide if American THC beverages become a cautionary footnote, or a regulatory template other markets end up studying next.
“Sales have tripled over the past year.”, Trent Mooring, founder, Kaya
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