Beverages in general are not a new medium for THC. Dispensaries, like The Farmacy in California, have long offered marijuana-infused sodas to qualified medical patients.
 
Nonetheless, the mainstream media went wild for a story posted by the Santa Cruz Sentinel earlier this week about an entrepreneur who has announced plans to launch a line of medical marijuana soft drinks intended for dispensaries. The story was covered on [link|http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/25/bud-in-a-bottle-new-marijuana-soda...|time.com], [link|http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41232529|msnbc.com], [link|http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/01/24/entrepreneur-says-marijuana-sof...|foxnews.com], [link|http://www.businessinsider.com/clay-butler-canna-cola-marijuana-2011-1|businessinsider.com], and Canada’s [link|http://www.cbc.ca/consumer/story/2011/01/25/marijuana-soft-drinks-125.html|CBC News] to name a few.
 
Basically a Soquel, California man, Clay Butler, plans on marketing his new THC soft drink line, Canna Cola.
 
According to reports, it’s Butler’s branding that sets him apart. Said Butler, “You look at all the marijuana products out there, and they are so mom-and-pop, hippie-dippy and rinky-dink … If someone can put every color on the rainbow on it, they do. If they can pick the most inappropriate and unreadable fonts, they will. And there’s marijuana leaves on everything. It’s a horrible cliché in the industry.”
 
So there you have it. The story, it seems, is in the branding. Butler’s not thrilled with all the mom-and-pop BS branding out there and he intends to change things. For instance, Butler’s “branding savvy” does include a marijuana leaf but it’s a marijuana leaf “made of bubbles.” Spectacular.
 
Branding aside, perhaps the media got on board because Canna Cola is considered the “light beer” of pot beverages, boasting between 35 to 65 milligrams of THC – “substantially below the levels of many drinks now on the market.”
 
Or perhaps reporters were intrigued by Butler himself, who said: “I don’t do drugs … Never have. I never drank, never smoked. I’m a clean-living guy. I’ve had two beers in my whole life, and I remember them both too. No marijuana, I’ve never smoked a cigarette. I take an aspirin when I get a headache. That’s it.”
 
More power to him. Yet it’s undoubtedly odd that a man who’s never even tried pot is passionately behind a marijuana-based product. Would you want to buy a slice from a guy who doesn’t know what pizza is supposed to taste like?
 
Whether Butler is an enigma or an opportunist is anybody’s guess. What’s certain is his Canna Cola line – which includes “the Dr Pepper-like Doc Weed, the lemon-lime Sour Diesel, the grape-flavored Grape Ape and the orange-flavored Orange Kush" – is getting plenty of media attention; perhaps simply because reporters are starved for the next canna-story to take advantage of pot’s soaring popularity.
 
The beverages will run you between $10 and $15 for a 12-ounce bottle. The expected Canna Cola debut will take place in Colorado this February with California tentatively scheduled to follow this spring.
 
More @ [link|http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/ci_17179763|santacruzsentinel.com]
 
To check out Butler’s branding, [link|http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0147e1f8635e970b-pi|head here].