In 2021, Indeed Brewing Company was issued a cease-and-desist letter that changed John Dugas’ career forever.
Superior Molecular, the hemp extraction company Dugas founded as a college senior in 2016, had been supplying the Minneapolis brewery with water-soluble CBD for its line of Lull seltzers. At the time, the non-intoxicating cannabinoid was legal, but the rules about who could produce it and when had not been ironed out. The U.S. Department of Agriculture stepped in, and Indeed pulled the product.
Dugas knew Indeed was busy fighting to get local liquor laws changed, and that it was unlikely to take up his cause. So he took a cue from his client and turned his plight into a crusade for small business, local agriculture, and craft-made consumer goods.
“[Breweries] can innovate and change on a dime, and that’s just so emblematic of where we are as a society,” Dugas says. “Craft beer 25 years ago in America was nonexistent relative to what it is now, and that gives me so much hope for what is possible for cannabis.”
Superior Molecular hired lobbyists to head to St. Paul, Minnesota and argue for the cause, where they spent months educating the Republican-led legislature on the health and economic benefits of legalizing THC. In the last week of session, Dugas spoke at the Capitol. His efforts worked: On July 1, 2022, state lawmakers pushed through a bill legalizing Delta-9 THC.
What followed has been a boom period for Minnesota breweries. Beermakers like Minneapolis’ Modist Brewing and Duluth’s Bent Paddle Brewing Company are churning out THC-dosed seltzers that were only made possible by Dugas’ barnstorming and unique line of extractions. It’s been called a “wild west,” with regulators scrambling to figure out this sudden new market—but to the consumer, it feels more like the kind of wide-open frontier only a 22-year-old entrepreneur could’ve dreamed up.
Dugas is riding the high of the landmark legislative victory, expanding Superior Molecular’s suburban headquarters to keep apace. This session, he’ll be pushing for full adult-use marijuana legalization, the natural culmination of his campaign to reshape the Minnesota “beer industry.”
“It’s just one of those moments where you just kind of stand there and smile,” Dugas says. “Now, a whole new audience can go be a part of brewery culture.”
Words,Jerard Fagerberg