Emails obtained by Politico show a lobbyist for Anheuser-Busch urging a state attorney general to hold the line on the federal hemp THC ban. Meanwhile, Total Wine & More has reported more than half a million dollars in lobbying on hemp THC beverage regulation and is backing legislation to keep qualifying drinks legal.
Big Alcohol’s push against hemp THC has been public for a while. In November 2025, a coalition of major beer, wine and spirits trade groups asked Congress to pull intoxicating hemp products from the market until federal rules were in place. In January, Sen. Rand Paul told Joe Rogan that “a little bit of the alcohol lobby” helped push the crackdown through. With alcohol sales falling and THC drinks growing, the incentives are obvious.
What hadn’t been public was how lobbyists working for some of the industry’s biggest companies were asking state attorneys general to help keep the crackdown on track.
Now there’s a paper trail.
Lobbyists working for some of the biggest names in beer and spirits urged state attorneys general to keep pressure on Congress not to delay the ban, according to emails reported by Politico and summarized by Marijuana Moment. The emails were obtained through public records requests by a hemp industry representative, who shared them with the outlet. According to Politico, lobbyists asked state officials to sign on to a letter to Congress on behalf of clients including Anheuser-Busch, Molson Coors and Diageo, the British company behind Guinness, Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff. High Times has since reviewed copies of several of the emails, which come from public records productions in Connecticut, Illinois, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Utah. They were provided by LSG, a public affairs firm that works with hemp companies, including Willie Nelson’s Willie’s Remedy.
‘A Couple Fringe US Senators’
One of the emails went to North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley in July. It came from Todd Kranda, a partner at the North Dakota law firm Kelsch, Ruff, Kranda, Nagle and Ludwig, who was working on behalf of Anheuser-Busch. The company sources nearly a quarter of its barley from North Dakota farmers, Politico noted.
“There are a couple fringe US Senators who would like to extend the loophole by another year in the CR being debated this weekend on Capitol Hill,” Kranda wrote in the July 30 email. “On behalf of a government relations client of mine, namely Anheuser – Busch, I have been asked to contact and encourage you to consider signing on to the new attached letter.”, referring to the stopgap spending bill.
In August, Wrigley joined a bipartisan group of 35 state and territorial attorneys general who asked Congress not to “delay, repeal, suspend, or weaken” the new hemp rules, according to Marijuana Moment.
Anheuser-Busch wasn’t the only brewer in the records. A day earlier, on July 29, a lobbyist named Justin Stewart emailed Utah’s chief deputy attorney general, Daniel Burton, from a personal iCloud account. “My Client Miller/Coors wanted me to forward this along and see if General Brown would be willing to sign this letter as well,” he wrote, referring to Utah Attorney General Derek Brown.
By Aug. 3, the letter had 28 signatures, short of what it needed to become official policy of the National Association of Attorneys General, according to an email the group sent to attorneys general offices. It went to Congress from its lead sponsors instead.
The emails don’t show that alcohol companies dictated what any attorney general decided. They do show that lobbyists for three of the largest beverage companies in the country were asking top law enforcement officials to help keep the ban on schedule.
“There are a couple fringe US Senators who would like to extend the loophole by another year…”
Todd Kranda, lobbyist working on behalf of Anheuser-Busch, in a July email to North Dakota’s attorney general, as reported by Politico
It Started a Year Earlier
The records show the same playbook in 2025, before Congress passed the ban. In October of that year, John Dunn, a lobbyist at the firm Cozen O’Connor, wrote to Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office that he had spoken to Raoul in Springfield about signing a letter urging Congress to “close the intoxicating hemp loophole.” He attached a draft. “Our client Diageo supports this initiative,” Dunn wrote. That letter went to Congress on Oct. 24, 2025, with 39 attorneys general on it.
Weeks earlier, another Cozen O’Connor lobbyist, Christopher Allen, had sent a draft letter to the attorney general’s offices in Connecticut and Utah. Those emails didn’t name a client. Connecticut ended up as one of the letter’s co-leads.
Not everyone inside the Connecticut office was sold. “Skeptical more about the push for it, not necessarily the substance,” one staffer wrote after forwarding Allen’s draft. Weeks later, while drafting the office’s press release, another staffer asked a colleague: “Now I’m very confused. What loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill then are we asking Congress to address?”
“Now I’m very confused. What loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill then are we asking Congress to address?”
A Connecticut attorney general’s office staffer, drafting the office’s press release on the 2025 letter
The Other Half of the Liquor Aisle
The alcohol business isn’t speaking with one voice, and it hasn’t for a while. As High Times reported in March, the companies that make alcohol and the companies that sell and distribute it have landed on opposite sides of this fight.
Total Wine & More, the national retail chain co-founded by former Democratic Rep. David Trone, reported $510,000 in federal lobbying on “Regulation of Low Dose Hemp Derived Beverages” during the first nine months of 2026, according to its federal disclosures. Spending rose every quarter, from $140,000 in the first to $180,000 in the second and $190,000 in the third. On Nov. 4, the company registered another outside firm, Little Rock-based Impact Management Group, to lobby on the same issue.
Total Wine & More’s federal lobbying on hemp beverage regulation, 2026
Total: $510,000 through September. Source: Lobbying Disclosure Act filings, via The Marijuana Herald.
Total Wine has publicly backed the Beverage Regulatory Parity Act, which would put hemp THC drinks under the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, cap them at 5 milligrams per serving and require age limits, product testing and a three-tier distribution system like the one alcohol uses. The National Beer Wholesalers Association has disclosed lobbying on legislation involving a three-tier system for the products, and the National Restaurant Association lists the Parity Act among its federal priorities. The NBWA says it “remains neutral on current legislative proposals.”
Wholesalers made their position clear a year ago. In November 2025, more than 50 beer, wine and spirits distributors wrote to congressional leaders asking them not to ban the products. “As demand for alcohol has shifted downwards in recent years, hemp products have created jobs, driven new investment, and helped us meet changing consumer demand,” they wrote.
That support comes with strings. The regulatory model distributors and retailers are pushing would route hemp drinks through the alcohol system they already run, which High Times has noted could give established alcohol players a lot of say over the category’s future.
| Who | What they’re pushing for | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Lobbyists working for Anheuser-Busch, Molson Coors and Diageo | Asked state attorneys general to sign letters urging Congress to pass the ban and not to delay it | State public records, first reported by Politico |
| 35 state and territorial attorneys general | Asked Congress not to “delay, repeal, suspend, or weaken” the new rules | August 2026 letter |
| Total Wine & More | Federal regulation of low-dose hemp drinks; backs the Beverage Regulatory Parity Act | Federal lobbying filings |
| National Beer Wholesalers Association | Lobbied on legislation involving a three-tier system for the products | Federal lobbying filings |
| National Restaurant Association | Lists the Beverage Regulatory Parity Act among its federal priorities | Federal lobbying filings |
| 50+ beer, wine and spirits distributors | Regulate and tax hemp products like alcohol instead of banning them | November 2025 letter to Congress |
The Dec. 11 Deadline
The ban was written into the spending law President Donald Trump signed in November 2025. It redefines hemp so that finished products with more than 0.4 milligrams of total THC per container no longer qualify. It was set to take effect Nov. 12 until a stopgap funding law pushed most of it to Dec. 11. Provisions covering cannabinoids that can’t occur naturally in the plant still take effect Nov. 12.
That leaves the lame-duck Congress a few weeks to act, and the fight is likely to land in December’s appropriations talks, Politico reported. Sen. Ted Budd (R-N.C.), who tried to strip the delay from September’s funding bill, told reporters at the time that the White House had promised him it wouldn’t lobby senators to postpone the crackdown again, according to Politico.
The products at stake are the ones some drinkers have been switching to. In an observational study of 4,516 people that High Times covered in August, the modeled probability of drinking alcohol fell from 22.9% before use to 10.9% on days participants had a THC beverage, a finding statistically significant for 23 of the 36 products tested. The study can’t show the drinks caused the drop. All 36 products are over the new federal limit.
Some alcohol retailers and distributors want those drinks regulated, taxed and sold next to the beer. According to the emails, lobbyists for some of the biggest brewers and spirits makers spent the summer asking attorneys general to make sure the ban lands on time.
