A Lemonade Born From Love Deserves Better Than a Ban
The Best Dirty Lemonade began with my mother in 2017 when she was living with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and as the disease progressed she stopped eating and struggled to sleep. I was never looking for a miracle cure, only for a way to help her feel more comfortable, so I started making an infused lemonade for her at home. Lemonade was the easiest drink to make taste good, and it became part of our daily routine until she passed in 2019.
A year later, during the pandemic, I brought a batch to a small, socially distanced gathering at a friend’s house in Atlanta. People loved it and kept telling me I should do something with it, so I started taking it to local vendor markets to see how people responded, and that is where The Best Dirty Lemonade became a business. The moment it truly felt real was when I opened the first can from our co-packer and realized we were onto something.
One of our first trade shows was the Alt Product Expo right here in Atlanta, where stores in my own community agreed to carry our lemonade. I could finally tell the customers I had met at markets where to find us, and soon people I had never met were tagging us on Instagram after discovering us on the store shelves. Today we are in roughly 200 to 250 stores across Georgia, including the Exhale City and Cloud 9 locations, and our products are also sold in Tennessee, Michigan and Massachusetts. Our lemonade has won Best in Grass awards in Michigan and Massachusetts and has been featured in Forbes and Black Enterprise.
Our customers are not who many people expect. Many of them are middle-aged women who want to unwind without the smell of cannabis, and many are cutting back on alcohol. We have cut the sugar in our recipe significantly since our first runs because our customers care about what they put in their bodies.
We are a small team of seven, and most of us still work other jobs to make ends meet. Without clear federal rules, we cannot forecast or plan for the future. Nearly every other small business can apply for an SBA loan, which signals to a bank that the government stands behind it, but that door is closed to us. Social media platforms restrict our advertising, which forces us to pay agencies that charge a premium for ads that rarely turn a profit. We are always fighting from behind, not because we have done anything wrong but because the rules were never written.
Now the situation is far more serious. Under current federal law, hemp beverages like ours will be effectively banned on December 11th, 2026, when a new limit of 0.4 milligrams of THC per container takes effect. Georgia has its own hemp program, but the state has told us it will follow federal law, which means our Georgia business would be gone. At least six larger hemp beverage brands also operate in Georgia, and a ban would hurt every one of them along with the retailers, distributors and families who depend on these sales.
There is a better way forward. We should keep high-dose cannabis in dispensaries where it belongs and allow low-dose hemp beverages to be sold in places like liquor stores that already know how to handle age-restricted products. These drinks should be limited to adults 21 and older, with IDs checked and rules that mirror how we treat alcohol. The Hemp Beverage Alliance, the national trade association I proudly belong to, is urging Congress to adopt exactly this kind of common-sense framework.
Advocacy is personal for me. I studied political science, went to law school and now serve as policy director for Peachtree NORML, the Georgia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. I spend a lot of time at the State Capitol speaking with lawmakers because a small business like mine cannot afford to pay a lobbyist thousands of dollars a month. Writing this letter is part of what I consider my duty as a business owner.
To Senator Jon Ossoff, Senator Raphael Warnock and Georgia’s members of Congress: Georgia prides itself on being a great state for small business, and I am asking you to stand by that promise. We are not asking for a handout, we are asking for clear rules that allow responsible businesses to stay open.
We are good actors, and we are being punished by misinformation that has followed cannabis for decades – it is time to leave the Reefer Madness era behind us.
If you enjoy these drinks or simply believe adults should have the choice, please take action this week.
Visit the Hemp Beverage Alliance action center at hempbeveragealliance.org/action-center, and write to your state representative, Senator Ossoff, Senator Warnock and your member of Congress.
Tell them how much you enjoy these beverages and that you want them to stay on the market for years to come. December 11th is close, and your voice matters now.
