Drinks infused with THC, the main psychoactive compound in marijuana, are no longer just a niche. 

They're popping up in bars, breweries, and stores across Georgia and around the country.

Behind the buzz of the booming market is a story of survival for local businesses.

An "almost seismic shift" in drink tastes 

The production line at Atlanta's Scofflaw Brewery almost tapped out after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alcohol sales tanked. Beer cans sat still, unopened and unwanted.

"Myself, and my CEO and CFO, we stopped taking salaries so we could keep other people on board," Scofflaw co-founder Matt Shirah said. "Luckily, my wife can keep us fed. And we didn't know if we were going to make it or not."

With the company Shirah worked so hard to build in trouble, he had an idea.

"We're no longer a typical brewery, Now, we're a basically an infused beverage manufacturer," he said.

Scofflaw Brewery transformed into Scofflaw Beverage Company. It's canning drinks without alcohol that have 5 to 10 milligrams of hemp-derived THC.

The products are legal in Georgia and can be shipped across the country.

The shift changed everything when it came to Scofflaw's operations.

"Turning into a beverage manufacturing company has allowed us to keep everyone employed and even add some people to the payroll, which is what's most important to me," Shirah said.

Now 80% of Scofflaw's revenue comes from manufacturing THC drinks for brands across the United States. It's a market that Shirah expects to explode.

"It's really been an almost seismic shift in customer preference," he said. "The THC infused business has the potential to be 10 to 20 times the size of beer business."

Finding relief from alcohol dependency

For Maxwell Navarra, THC drinks are personal. The brewery employee served in Afghanistan and struggled with PTSD and alcohol dependency when he came home.

"I wasn't expecting a sense of motivation or purpose," he said. "I guess I was just trying to make the nightmares go away."

Navarra says the THC drinks helped change that, allowing him to re-engage with his life and his family. He's now more than 650 days sober.

"I actually became more interested in the conversations with my wife, and I became—I wanted to take my son out more," he said.

The promise of a growing THC beverage industry

Experts say the industry of producing THC beverages is in a regulatory gray zone. 

In Georgia, the drinks are not taxed, but with proper oversight, the economic potential could be enormous.

"Doing common sense taxing of these products, you know, legalizing products that make sense for adults in our state to use, we will see lots of tax benefit," economics professor Kyle Townsend said.

Industry analysts say THC beverage sales could top $1 billion nationally within the next few years. As the market grows, calls for tighter regulation and clearer laws are growing louder too.

Shirah says he supports regulations to help the industry grow. He says the shift to THC drinks hasn't cannibalized alcohol sales, it's just meeting people where they are.

"It's a shift toward what people believe are perceived to be health and well-being," he said.

For businesses like his, and lives like Navarra's the shift may be more than a trend. It just might be the future.