Pot-laced soda in budding stages
One company hopes to sell Canna Cola and other flavors to medical-marijuana patients.
Marijuana in a soda? Yes, if one California company gets its way.Diavolo Brands hopes to market a line of soft drinks enhanced with THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, The Santa Cruz Sentinel reports. The company wants to produce a number of flavors, including Canna Cola, a Dr Pepper-like Doc Weed and a lemon-lime Sour Diesel.
You won't find the drinks at 7-Eleven. The sodas are intended for use by medical-marijuana patients and likely will be distributed at pot dispensaries that have received regulatory approval.
As states continue to decriminalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes, a new kind of entrepreneurship is unfolding. Small companies are developing ways to market pot products across the country, aiming to stake an early claim in a budding industry.
Post continues after video:
So far, the marijuana-based products out there are "mom-and-pop, hippie-dippy and rinky-dink," Clay Butler, a partner in Diavolo Brands, told the Sentinel. He decided to look to Snapple and Coca-Cola (KO) as models and make a marijuana beverage with a more professional look.
The sodas are expected to cost between $10 and $15 for a 12-ounce bottle and are slated to go on sale in Colorado next month. They'll contain between 35 and 65 milligrams of THC, the Sentinel reports.
But there are two big barriers to firing up mass production. One is that the sodas cannot be transported across state lines, so they'll have to be made in the state in which they are sold. Also, a proposed bill called the "Brownie Law" in Congress forbids anything that combines marijuana with a "candy product," the Sentinel reports.
There's one industry that can take the lead on marketing and distributing marijuana-based products. Philip Morris (PM), Altria (MO) and other tobacco companies have the experience and the congressional pull to dominate this nascent business. And there's big money in it, too: Pot is the biggest cash crop in California alone, pulling in about $14 billion in annual sales.
MORE ON MSN MONEY
DATA PROVIDERS
Copyright © 2013 Microsoft. All rights reserved.
Quotes are real-time for NASDAQ, NYSE and AMEX. See delay times for other exchanges.
Fundamental company data and historical chart data provided by Thomson Reuters (click for restrictions). Real-time quotes provided by BATS Exchange. Real-time index quotes and delayed quotes supplied by Interactive Data Real-Time Services. Fund summary, fund performance and dividend data provided by Morningstar Inc. Analyst recommendations provided by Zacks Investment Research. StockScouter data provided by Verus Analytics. IPO data provided by Hoover's Inc. Index membership data provided by SIX Financial Information.
Japanese stock price data provided by Nomura Research Institute Ltd.; quotes delayed 20 minutes. Canadian fund data provided by CANNEX Financial Exchanges Ltd.
LATEST POSTS
Try as the bears might, they couldn't break US stocks. But investors still face frothy prices and considerable headwinds.
FIDELITY VIEWPOINTS
- How to sell covered calls - Fidelity Investments
- Savvy year-end tax moves to consider now - Fidelity Investments
- Seven ways to prepare for tax changes
- Five reasons an annual review is crucial - Fidelity Investments
- Take a look at mid caps now - Fidelity Investments
- State of the sector: Health care - Fidelity Investments
VIDEO ON MSN MONEY
ABOUT
Top Stocks provides analysis about the most noteworthy stocks in the market each day, combining some of the best content from around the MSN Money site and the rest of the Web.
Contributors include professional investors and journalists affiliated with MSN Money.
Follow us on Twitter @topstocksmsn.
