SoStoned Cannabis Energy Drink with CBD

The name describes something the drink is not

Most cannabis-adjacent product names on our shelves refer to a place, a plant variety or a flavour. Amsterdam, Moroccan, Wedding Cake, Bubba Gum. They may be loose, and we have spent a lot of these pages saying so, but they describe a thing.

SoStoned is different in kind. It does not name a place or a plant. It names a state of intoxication, and it is the whole of the brand rather than a flavour within it.

The drink contains CBD. CBD is not intoxicating, and the maker's own material is explicit about that, going out of its way to contrast the CBD in the can with THC and to state that there are no psychoactive effects. So the name promises the one thing the accompanying copy is at pains to say the product does not do.

This is worth understanding rather than being outraged about, and we are not alleging anything. But it is the sort of thing food law takes an interest in: the presentation of a food, including the name it is sold under, is not supposed to mislead a buyer about what the food is or what it does. A name that describes an effect is doing more work than a name that describes a flavour.

Our practical advice is simply to read the can rather than the logo. If you want to understand what CBD is and is not, our learn pages set that out at length.

Nobody agrees how much CBD is in it

Here is the more consequential problem, and it is one we cannot solve for you.

Our own trade supplier lists this product under a web address ending in 5mg, and the product photograph we receive carries the same figure in its filename. Another established UK retailer lists what appears to be the same drink with a figure ten times larger. The can size is disputed too, with some listings giving 250ml and others 330ml.

That is not a small discrepancy. A tenfold disagreement about cannabinoid content, on a product with a single name and a single manufacturer, means at least one set of listings is wrong, and we have no way of telling you which from the outside.

So we are not going to print a figure. Our own product record carries no strength for it either, which in this instance is the honest position rather than an oversight. If the CBD content matters to your decision, and on a drink it reasonably might, the can in your hand is the only thing worth trusting, and we would rather tell you that than pick whichever number suited us.

This is the fifth product in this round of work where we have left a specification out because the available sources contradicted each other or could not be checked. We would rather a gap than a guess.

What is actually declared in the can

The ingredient list is consistent across the resellers even where the figures are not, and it is a conventional energy drink formulation with a hemp flavour rather than anything unusual.

Water and sugar make up the bulk. Hemp flavour and caramel colour do the branding work. Citric acid and sodium citrate handle acidity, taurine and caffeine are the standard energy drink pair, and there is a vitamin B group: pantothenic acid, B6, B2 and B12. Potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate preserve it, and aspartame and acesulfame sweeten alongside the sugar.

Two things worth pulling out of that. The hemp is a flavouring, so the cannabis character of the drink is a taste rather than a botanical content, in the same way the cannabis sweets elsewhere on our shelves work. And aspartame is present, which means the can will carry a phenylalanine declaration, a labelling requirement rather than anything else.

The caffeine content and what it means, including when a drink has to carry a high caffeine statement and how these compare with an ordinary energy drink, is set out in full on our Multitrance Amsterdam cannabis drinks page rather than repeated here.

One small oddity. Some of the copy circulating with this product describes it as an alternative to caffeine, while caffeine is in the ingredient list. A drink cannot be an alternative to something it contains, and it is the kind of line that survives being pasted from shop to shop without anybody reading it.

It is out of stock, and how it is supplied

This product is not currently available from us. We have left the page up because the questions above are worth answering whether or not you can order it today, and because a listing that disappears takes its explanation with it.

On supply, our record describes this as a full case rather than a single can, which is the wholesale quantity our distributor trades in. That figure is flagged internally as unconfirmed, so we are treating it as our supplier's description rather than something we have verified, and we would confirm it before ordering if it mattered.

If you want a cannabis-branded drink today, the Multitrance range linked above is the closer substitute and those pages carry considerably more settled specifications.

Who this is not for

If you are buying it because of what the name suggests, it will not do that, and the maker's own material says so. That is the single most important sentence on this page.

If you want to know how much CBD you are drinking, the listings for this product contradict each other and we are not prepared to pick one.

If you are avoiding caffeine, this is an energy drink and contains it, whatever the surrounding copy about alternatives implies.

If you avoid aspartame or need to watch phenylalanine, it is in the sweetener blend.

Over-18s only. This is not a medicine and nothing on this page describes an effect of any kind.