Grab your favorite drink.
Maybe even a gummy or two.
We’re hitting the road.
And not just any road. This one winds through gas station coolers in Texas, liquor store aisles in Florida, and a handful of old-school dispensaries up in Maine and Massachusetts. Riding shotgun are Cheech and Chong. The duo who once made a living out of forgetting where they parked the van are now driving one of the smartest cannabis businesses in America.
This is not the typical weed brand story. It is not about chasing clout in California. It is about sidestepping the mess, shifting gears into hemp, and turning a counterculture punchline into a one hundred million dollar empire.
California Slams the Door on Hemp THC
California was supposed to be home base. The mecca. The place where a Cheech and Chong cannabis brand practically writes itself. But the reality was not so mellow.
Taxes weighed heavy. Compliance costs stacked up. Then regulators pulled the plug on hemp altogether, banning hemp-based THC drinks and edibles from being sold on regular shelves. Imagine trying to play in a game where the refs change the rules halfway through. That is what California did.
So Cheech and Chong did something bold. They left. They did not just trim down operations or try to lawyer their way through loopholes. They pivoted completely. Instead of fighting uphill, they asked the simplest question in business: what if we do not play this game at all?
The Hemp Shortcut to Nationwide Sales
The answer was hemp.
Not the boring rope and soap kind. The federally legal Delta-9-in-your-drink kind. Thanks to the 2018 Farm Bill, hemp-derived THC has a strange superpower. It can cross state lines. That means a seltzer made in Kentucky can show up in Texas, Florida, or New York without a dispensary license and without local regulators breathing down its neck.
That is the lane Cheech and Chong swerved into. Instead of being stuck selling flower in one or two states, they built a hemp supply chain that now ships to 49 states. Sorry Idaho. Suddenly, their brand was not just a West Coast thing. It was national.
And it worked. In 2024 they were already pulling in around 50 million dollars in revenue. This year projections put them near 100 million. That is not smoke and mirrors. That is a full-fledged business pivot that outmaneuvered half the cannabis industry.
THC Drinks Hit the Cooler Aisle
But here is where the story gets fun.
Imagine you walk into a Circle K for an energy drink. You are half-awake, fumbling for change, when you see it. High & Dry, a Cheech and Chong THC seltzer, sitting right next to the LaCroix. No security guard. No plastic jars. Just chilling in the cooler, waiting to be grabbed like any other drink.
That is not fantasy. That is distribution. Cheech and Chong locked down placements in 2,000 Circle K stores. On top of that, they rolled into Total Wine, Binny’s, and ABC Fine Wine & Spirits in Florida. For a lot of consumers, this is their first casual brush with cannabis. Not a dispensary with menus and budtenders, but a six-pack of THC drinks sold next to craft beer.
It is clever. It takes cannabis out of the shadows and slides it into everyday life. For someone who has never set foot in a dispensary, grabbing a Cheech and Chong seltzer is as easy as buying a Coke. And culturally, that changes everything.
Texas Becomes the New Cannabis Showcase
If California was a dead end, Texas turned out to be the open highway.
Here is the irony. The state that still will not legalize traditional cannabis is quickly becoming Cheech and Chong’s strongest market. Their Apothicaria hemp shops have started popping up in North Texas. Six stores at least, maybe more. The numbers get fuzzy, but the impact does not.
Lawmakers tried to throw up a roadblock this year with a proposed ban on hemp THC. For a moment it looked like the music was about to stop. But the ban stalled in the statehouse, leaving the door wide open. For now, Texas remains the ultimate showcase. If you can sling hemp legally in Dallas, you can sling it anywhere.
It is a wild twist. California, the birthplace of modern weed culture, shut them out. Texas, the land of brisket and Friday night lights, let them in.
Keeping One Foot in Real Cannabis
Of course, Cheech and Chong did not fully abandon "real" weed. They have Cheech and Chong’s Dispensoria shops running in Maine, Massachusetts, and New Mexico, keeping their foot in the licensed game. Beyond that, their products are stocked in 1,500 dispensaries nationwide and expected to rake in around 34 million dollars this year.
It is balance. Hemp is the engine that scales. Cannabis is the anchor that keeps their brand authentic. Without the dispensary side, they would risk looking like just another hemp soda brand. With it, they stay connected to the culture that made them famous.
A Risky Side Quest Into Kratom and More
And because it would not be Cheech and Chong without a twist, they have also wandered into kratom and other fringe products. It is risky. Controversial. But it keeps them in headlines and cements their reputation as boundary-pushers.
There is even chatter about a potential exit. Cheech himself has hinted he would love to sell. If that happens, it could mark one of the biggest cannabis brand sales to date. The kind of headline that makes Wall Street sit up and pay attention to two guys who used to make jokes about hotboxing cars.
The Big Punchline
Cheech and Chong did not outmuscle California. They outmaneuvered it.
By pivoting to hemp, they slipped past state borders and landed in places most cannabis companies can only dream of. Mainstream shelves and nationwide shipping. They did not just sell weed. They sold normalcy.
So here we are, riding shotgun as two counterculture icons take their biggest road trip yet. Not in a beat-up van with smoke pouring out the windows, but in delivery trucks hauling pallets of THC seltzer.
And if you ask me, that might be their funniest move yet.
Sources
- Cheech & Chong’s $100M Hemp Empire
SFGate - Cannabis Drinks Market
Business Insider - THC Beverage Sponsorship
Cannabis Business Times
WDRB Louisville - Retail Placement
Circle K pilot (~2,000 stores): Forbes
Total Wine listings: Total Wine (search “Cheech & Chong High & Dry”)
ABC Fine Wine & Spirits rollout: Newswire Press Release
Binny’s carries the line: Binny’s (search “Cheech & Chong High & Dry”) - Texas Retail Expansion
Apothicaria hemp shops: KERA News - Dispensoria Locations
MA & NM store locators: Dispensoria Official Site - Regulatory Landscape
California hemp THC rules: California Department of Public Health
Texas hemp ban status: Houston Chronicle - Shipping & Sales Figures
49-state shipping claim: Cheech & Chong’s Global Site
