🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets.

This week, we examine the fight most of the cannabis industry is still misreading.

Inside licensed dispensaries, THC beverages barely register. In Q1 2025 they represented about 1 percent of cannabis sales nationwide, according to BDSA. The category that was supposed to bring social drinkers and lighter-use consumers into the regulated market is still a niche inside the system built to sell it.

But outside that system, the same format is moving very differently.

In Minnesota, a liquor retailer told Reuters that hemp-derived THC beverages now account for 15 percent of his business.

Same product. Different channel. Entirely different result.

This episode walks through what that mismatch reveals about the real battle shaping the next phase of cannabis policy. It is not simply cannabis versus alcohol. It is a contest over which distribution system introduces cannabinoids to the mainstream consumer market.

We explore why alcohol wholesalers are pushing Congress to regulate hemp beverages instead of banning them, why producer groups want the regulatory loophole closed, and why retailers and brewers increasingly see THC drinks as a growth category rather than a threat.

The deeper policy question follows from there.

If low-dose cannabinoid beverages are reaching consumers through ordinary retail channels, legalization alone will not determine the structure of the market. The decisive question becomes who controls the infrastructure that carries these products to consumers.

The cannabis industry spent a decade fighting for legal space.

The next decade may be decided by who controls the shelf space.

🔗 Related post:
Read the full Sunday editorial:
https://www.homegrown-group.com/blog/wrong-enemy

Subscribe to the Sunday briefing:
https://policy-decoded.beehiiv.com/?modal=signup

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets.

This week, we examine the category war coming for cannabis.

Legalization built a system around a specific product sold in a specific place: cannabis flower in a licensed dispensary. But the market that followed did not stay there. THC now appears in drinks, gummies, vapes, tinctures, and other manufactured products that move across different retail channels and regulatory assumptions.

We walk through the structural shift underneath the industry. Cultivation is beginning to behave like a commodity business while value concentrates in manufactured products and brands. Jeeter, Wyld, and STIIIZY illustrate how quickly that consolidation is happening, even inside a fragmented market that still faces federal tax penalties, banking restrictions, and interstate commerce barriers.

Then we explain how hemp broke the architecture legalization was built on. Intoxicating products began appearing outside dispensaries in convenience stores, liquor-adjacent retail, and online storefronts, creating a parallel market that regulators never designed their systems to govern.

Finally, we unpack the deeper policy question this raises. As cannabis products begin to behave like consumer packaged goods, regulators are no longer just governing cannabis. They are governing a growing family of THC products that circulate through households, retail shelves, and social rituals in ways legalization frameworks were never built to manage.

The first phase of cannabis policy asked whether cannabis should be legal. The next phase will decide where it belongs.

🔗 Related post:

Subscribe to the Sunday briefing: https://policy-decoded.beehiiv.com/?modal=signup

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets.

This week, we confront the uncomfortable truth behind intoxicating hemp. Congress drew the line in the 2018 Farm Bill. The market engineered inside it. States inherited the consequences.

We explain how “gas station gummies” and opportunistic products grew out of a federal definition - and how, at the same time, mature operators built adult-retail channels with testing, labeling, dosing limits, and age gating. Then we walk through what states actually did: bans aimed at the worst actors, plus real infrastructure - licensure, lab standards, potency definitions, retail boundaries, stop-sale authority, and revenue to fund enforcement.

Finally, we break down the pending federal hemp rewrite, why the 0.4 mg per-container cap functions as a reclassification event for many state programs, and what happens when Washington changes the definition underneath systems that are already operating. This is not a culture-war fight. It is a federalism and governance test.

Congress can close the loophole. The question is whether it will respect the state capacity built to manage its consequences.

🔗 Related post: https://www.homegrown-group.com/blog/farm-bill

Subscribe to the Sunday briefing: https://policy-decoded.beehiiv.com/?modal=signup

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets.

This week, we break down the repeal playbook now showing up in states like Massachusetts, Maine, and Arizona, and explain why the next fight over legalization will not be a culture war rerun. The strategy is a competence attack aimed straight at the persuadable middle: convince voters that commercialization cannot be trusted, then offer rollback as the “reasonable” fix.

We walk through the case opponents are building and why it works when the system hands them footage: pediatric exposures, rising THC potency, gas station THC, impaired driving, illicit cultivation, and regulators who look distracted. Then we shift to what serious oversight actually looks like in practice, and why the industry’s biggest vulnerability is fragmentation and tolerance for behavior that undermines everyone’s credibility.

The question is no longer whether legalization was justified. The question is whether the system looks governed.

🔗 Related post: https://www.homegrown-group.com/blog/repeal-playbook

Subscribe to the Sunday briefing: https://policy-decoded.beehiiv.com/?modal=signup

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, Policy, Decoded is the Sunday briefing that steps back from the churn and unpacks one consequential policy story shaping cannabis, hemp, alcohol, and regulated markets.

This episode takes on the New York Times editorial board’s reassessment of marijuana legalization. We walk through what the board claims has gone wrong, then pressure-test the argument with the realities policymakers and operators live with: underfunded public education, thin regulatory capacity, tax stacking, weak incentives to move consumers and sellers into the legal market, and enforcement that rarely matches the rhetoric.

Join us as we separate legalization as an idea from legalization as implemented, and map what a mature market correction can look like when the goal is fewer headlines and more durable governance.

🔗 Related essay:
https://www.homegrown-group.com/blog/nyt-editorial

Subscribe to the Sunday briefing:
https://policy-decoded.beehiiv.com/

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode takes on the question we keep getting: how is hemp THC legal, and what makes it different from marijuana sold in dispensaries. We walk through how one plant ended up split by two legal systems, why dispensaries were built as closed, auditable markets, and how a federal hemp definition turned low-dose THC into a mainstream consumer product.

From Instagram ads and home delivery to liquor store shelves and statehouses, consumers experience this as one THC market. Policymakers do not. We unpack how that mismatch fueled confusion, invited bad actors, and pushed Congress to tighten the definition again.

Join us as we explain what changed in Washington, why FDA’s next set of definitions will matter more than most headlines suggest, and how trust, not chemistry, has become the real fault line shaping the future of cannabis and hemp in America.

🔗 Related essay:
https://www.homegrown-group.com/blog/[INSERT-SLUG]

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode examines how hemp-derived THC drinks quietly rewrote the rules of American social life. We trace how a generation that values wellness, clarity, and connection began trading hangovers for balance—and how a billion-dollar market emerged before Congress finished defining it.

From convenience stores in Minnesota to liquor aisles nationwide, these drinks are reshaping expectations and forcing policymakers to catch up. We break down why major alcohol trade groups are now asking Washington to pause the market, what that really signals about power and timing, and why “putting hemp on ice” might freeze innovation, not protect consumers.

Join us as we unpack how culture moved first, regulation stumbled behind, and what this fight reveals about who gets to shape the future of social drinking in America. 🍻🌿

https://www.homegrown-group.com/blog/hemp-on-ice

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode asks what a government shutdown really means beyond the headlines. We trace the origins back to a 1980 legal opinion that transformed missed deadlines into full stop crises, then explain how twelve appropriations bills tied to defense, health, transportation, and foreign affairs became bargaining chips in partisan standoffs.

From national parks locking their gates to federal workers going weeks without pay, from stalled small business loans to delayed immigration hearings, we explore the real consequences when government slows to a crawl. We look at the ripple effects on contractors, local economies, and public trust, and why each shutdown leaves institutions weaker than before.

Join us as we unpack why shutdowns are not simply political theater but a corrosive cycle that erodes confidence in democracy itself. This essay-turned-conversation explains how shutdowns happen, what services continue, what stops, and why the bigger danger is the normalization of dysfunction. 🏛️⚠️

https://www.homegrown-group.com/blog/shutdown

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode asks whether Labor Day is just a three-day weekend or a rulebook for the future of work. We trace the holiday back to its 1882 origins—homemade floats, brass bands, and workers demanding dignity—and argue those lessons still explain today’s battles over AI, platforms, and modern strikes.

From the Pullman Strike to the “stand-up strike,” from handmade banners to algorithmic scheduling, we explore how local leverage, crisis windows, and institutional ratification have always shaped worker power. We look at why public-money corridors in chips and clean energy will set sector standards, how portable benefits will follow gig workers across apps, and why contracts now treat data rights and algorithms as core working conditions.

Join us as we navigate what 1882 can teach us about organizing in 2025: why approval of unions is high even as membership remains low, why the modern strike is surgical, and why the future of labor will be decided at chokepoints where technology, politics, and capital intersect. ✊📈

New episodes drop early for subscribers to The Homegrown Consulting Group’s Insiders newsletter. Sign up at www.homegrown-group.com for early access.

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

https://www.homegrown-group.com/blog/laborday

🎙️ Powered by THC Group, this episode tackles David Brooks' explosive NYT piece asking "Are We Really Willing to Become Dumber?" We examine whether AI in education is a cognitive threat or the catalyst for long-overdue reform of America's $1.81 trillion student debt crisis.

From MIT studies showing 55% reduced brain connectivity in AI users to the apprenticeship renaissance bypassing traditional degrees, we explore how artificial intelligence exposes decades of educational dysfunction. Is restricting AI the answer, or should we embrace it to build smarter pathways to prosperity?

Join us as we navigate the tension between cognitive development and technological disruption in a system already failing millions of borrowers. 🧠💡

New episodes drop early for subscribers to The Homegrown Consulting Group's Insiders newsletter. Sign up at www.homegrown-group.com for early access.

This podcast may include content written or produced with the support of AI tools under human direction and editorial oversight.

www.homegrown-group.com/blog/ai-education