Julie Aitcheson
With over 2 million cans sold, Cann THC-infused beverages are the fastest-selling in the category to date, with more than a few celebrities putting their endorsement and investment power behind these wildly popular products. Billed as “cannabis-infused social tonics”, Cann beverages are alcohol-free and microdosed with THC, offering better-for-you alternatives to alcohol and other intoxicants. These tonics are also free of artificial sweeteners, flavors, or sugar substitutes and contain only 35 calories per serving.
Cann sees their recruitment of celebrity investors as a way to serve the larger mission of normalizing cannabis consumption and breaking down stigmas within the industry. Cann’s celebrity investor line-up includes luminaries such as Gwyneth Paltrow, whose wellness and lifestyle brand goop has been monitoring the “sober curious” and “cannabis curious” movements for some time. Paltrow advocates for a more even playing field when it comes to alcohol and cannabis-infused beverage access, stating that “there’s no reason why alcohol should be so much easier purchase than Cann.”
Rebel Wilson, famous for her turn as “Fat Amy” in the Pitch Perfect franchise and Ruby Rose of Orange Is The New Black fame has also rallied behind Cann products. “Cann is perfect when you’re having a dinner party or a few friends over and you want to serve an adult drink that is also healthy and has natural ingredients,” enthuses Wilson, who has recently made headlines with her “Year of Health” weight loss makeover. “Call me ‘Fit Amy’” she recently captioned alongside a slimmed-down selfie on Instagram. Her sleeker photos often come with insights into how she is managing her weight loss through diet, exercise, and substituting bubble baths for nightly desserts. Her financial backing of the Cann brand would suggest that Cann beverages have become yet another healthy substitute in her “Year of Health” bag of tricks.
THC-infused beverages promise all of the buzz of alcoholic beverages with none of the buzzkill day-after hangovers, but the allure of a healthy high isn’t the only thing that drew actress/model/DJ/VJ Ruby Rose to invest. While she praises Cann’s products, packaging, and personnel, Rose highlights the fact that “this company is queer-founded and diverse” as an incentive to get involved. “They are building a team currently made up of 50%+ women and 33%+ people of color. So for me, it was an easy decision to invest.”
Paltrow, Wilson, and Rose along with Daren Criss, Baron Davis, Tove Lo, and more are what Cann co-founder Luke Anderson refers to as “taste-making celebrities who don’t have a ‘stoner’ identity attached to their personal brands”. Co-founder Jake Bullock adds “culturally-relevant” to the list of superlatives, and shares Anderson’s hope that their deep bench of star backers will “help us spread this message to a mass consumer base.”
