Why Social Equity Operators Should Be Paying Attention to Low-Dose Beverages
By Amber Senter and Lauren Gibbs
If you had told me five years ago that I'd be building a hemp beverage company, I wouldn't have believed you. But here I am, the owner of Isle Noire, a quickly growing hemp beverage company. My excitement for the beverage opportunity isn’t just a fantasy–the market has proven demand.
Like many people in cannabis, I thought the future would arrive through regulated dispensaries. I thought normalization would happen through the adult-use cannabis market. Consumers were already showing us a different path. Today, hemp-derived low-dose cannabinoid beverages are being sold everywhere alcohol is, and is seeing wild success.
Yet, when I talk to social equity operators and small business owners, many people are watching this opportunity pass by rather than participating in it.
That concerns me because I've spent years advocating for greater participation in this industry. I've spent years talking about ownership, access, and economic opportunity. When I look at the low-dose cannabinoid beverage category, I don't see a market that belongs to someone else. I see an accessible avenue that more of us should be seizing.
Blame Game = Missed Opportunity
I’m on a mission to introduce this opportunity to social equity operators all over the country. I often hear the same refrain: Hemp is hurting their business. Hemp has an unfair advantage. Hemp is taking customers away from licensed operators.
When I dig deeper, I find that hemp isn’t the thing causing their problems. The uncomfortable truth is that many cannabis businesses are competing against a regulatory structure that makes success extraordinarily difficult. Operators struggling under crushing taxes, burdensome regulations, expensive licensing requirements, limited access to capital, and a brick-and-mortar dispensary business model from 1996 that has become increasingly difficult to sustain.
I faced all the same roadblocks as a licensed cannabis operator. But I saw a winnable opportunity and jumped in. With hemp, I could stay on the same mission of patient access, but it has proven to be a more attainable path. The cost to launch a dispensary is about $3 million conservatively, a huge barrier to entry in regulated cannabis. The cost to launch a hemp beverage is around $50,000, a mere fraction.
So I ask a simple question: Have you actually looked at the opportunity? They hadn’t, until hearing these numbers. Suddenly they aren’t deriding hemp anymore. We are talking about economics, capital requirements, margins, taxes, distribution, and access to consumers.
The market does not reward us for being attached to a particular business model. It rewards us for recognizing and adapting to the marketplace. While the industry debates hemp versus cannabis, consumers have already voted with their wallets. When hemp beverages are on the menu, they are being ordered, and if it was up to consumers, hemp beverages would be here to stay.
Most of the time I can't drink alcohol, and for years I'd find myself ordering soda water with bitters and lime just so I had something in my hand. I'm not the only one. Not everyone wants alcohol, a smoke, an edible. Hemp beverages meet consumers where they already are; the adult consumer already knows how to dose themselves with a beverage.
Lessons from the Past Could Help Build a More Equitable Future
I listen to conversations in the hemp industry and I feel like we're acting as though this category appeared out of thin air. It didn't. Decades of advocacy, risk-taking, criminalization, and cultural acceptance made this moment possible. Many of the communities that paid the highest price during prohibition still aren't meaningfully participating in the opportunity.
That's something we need to change.
As this category grows, we should be asking who gets to participate in the opportunity. Right now, I can name maybe a dozen Black hemp beverage operators in the entire country, and that should concern all of us. If we want more than a handful of Black operators in this category, we need to be intentional about creating pathways in. Because when I look at this category, I don't see a market that belongs to someone else. I see an opportunity that more of us should be participating in. We need more Black founders in this space, more social equity operators, more small business owners in this space.
That means access to information. Access to capital. Access to manufacturing. Access to distribution. Access to the relationships that help businesses grow. These are all policy decisions.
Policy Should Center the Consumer
Unfortunately the hemp beverage sector is now facing an existential threat. Congress passed an entirely new paradigm for regulating hemp–a limitation on the dosage per container. The new draconian limit–0.4 milligram per container–would fundamentally alter today’s hemp beverage market, which is dominated by 5-10 milligram dosing options. There’s a lot of legislative fixes floating around Congress, but the November 12th deadline looms large.
As Congress debates the future of intoxicating hemp products, policymakers are making decisions that could fundamentally reshape this category before many communities have had a chance to participate.
I support safe and responsible regulation. But there is a difference between regulating a market and regulating it out of existence. At the same time, I think we're asking the wrong questions. For years, the industry has treated hemp and cannabis as separate plants. But if federal policymakers ultimately unify intoxicating hemp products and adult-use cannabis products in the same regulatory category, that distinction becomes far less necessary.
Most consumers don't care if the THC came from hemp or cannabis. They care if the product is safe, if it tastes good, if the experience is predictable, and if they can actually buy it. Those are the questions consumers are asking. The industry and policymakers should be asking how to better serve the consumer. Instead they are getting lost in the manufactured fight of hemp versus cannabis.
The Future Is Up To Us
The future is not hemp beverages versus cannabis beverages; the future is low-dose cannabinoid beverages. Products with similar effects should be regulated under similar principles regardless of which version of the plant they come from.
Low-dose cannabinoid beverages have the potential to create new pathways for entrepreneurs, expand access, and bring new consumers into the category. But participation requires more than observation.
If you're a social equity operator, a small business owner, or an entrepreneur who believes there should be room for more people in this industry, now is the time to engage. The door is open.
The question is whether we're going to spend the next few years fighting over categories, or whether we're going to build something that actually works for consumers, entrepreneurs, and the communities that helped get us here.
We must ensure that social equity operators have their voice heard while we are still in the process of crafting a national framework for the industry. Now is the time to talk to your legislators. Pay attention to the policies being proposed. Make your voice heard before decisions are made without you. Let’s ensure social equity has a seat at the table.
We've missed opportunities before. Let’s not do it again.
Amber E. Senter is a co-founder and the Executive Director of Supernova Women, an organization formed in 2015 dedicated to empowering Black and Brown small business owners in the cannabis industry. Through her work with Supernova Women, Amber is working tirelessly to lower barriers of entry for communities harmed by the War on Drugs in the legal cannabis market with initiatives such as assisting in the creation of Oakland's social equity program, the first social equity program in the country.
As the founder and CEO of Isle Noire, a hemp beverage company, Amber leads fundraising efforts, manages the supply chain, navigates government relations, and helps develop innovative products.
Amber is also a US Coast Guard veteran.
Amber was recently profiled in High Times Magazine: Cannabis Equity Was Built to Repair the War on Drugs. Its Architect Says It Funneled Black Founders Into a Trap.
