Dwyane Wade discovered the drink that would become his newest business the way most people discover anything good these days, by accident, at a party, with a friend pressing something cold into his hand. It was Cann, the low-dose THC social tonic that has spent the last several years quietly rewriting what a grown-up beverage can look like, and the moment landed for him with unusual clarity. He was present, he was enjoying himself, and the next morning he felt fine. For a man seven years into a post-NBA life defined by wine labels, tequila stakes, and a production company, the appeal was not the buzz. It was the absence of the hangover, the way the night stayed intact.
That personal enthusiasm turned into an investment, and only then did Cann ask the question that founders love to ask a famous fan: what would you make? Wade, a 13-time All-Star and three-time champion who now spends more time on the course than the court, went straight to golf. He wanted the drink he kept wishing existed somewhere between the ninth and tenth holes, something cold and refreshing that would not pull him out of the conversation or leave him foggy for the back nine. The answer was hiding in plain sight, in the half-and-half that golfers have been sipping for generations. “We didn’t have to reinvent the wheel on this,” Wade told WWD in an exclusive interview.
“It’s already a very popular drink out here, made by a golfer, and we just kind of played off that nostalgia”
The result, Cann x Dwyane Wade Half & Half, arrives online August 4 on drinkcann.com and rolls into stores later this summer. It blends bergamot lemonade with yerba mate iced tea, non-carbonated and lightly sweetened, with a clean caffeine lift from the mate that runs roughly the strength of an espresso shot. Getting the tea to lead without turning bitter took the most back and forth. “The taste is the first thing that jumps out at you,” Wade says.
“Trying to get this perfect mix of a little sweetness in it, but also to let the tea really lead”
What makes the launch feel of its cultural moment is the split. Half & Half comes in a 3-milligram THC and 6-milligram CBD microdose, and in Cann’s first ever 0MG, pronounced OMG, a THC-free version that joins the Blood Orange Cardamom and Lemon Lavender that debuted earlier this summer. The dual approach mirrors how Wade actually lives with the product, reaching for the infused version when he wants something extra and the clean one when he is locked in on family, work, or the game. “Sometimes you just want something cold,” he says. “I don’t want to drink a soda. I don’t want to drink juice. What is that in-between thing that allows me to still feel like I’m in a room with adults, but I can also be in a room with my kids?”
The 0MG line leans hard into function, with magnesium for mood, electrolytes for hydration, L-theanine to soften the edges, and mate for energy, choices Wade traces directly to his playing days and the recovery science that governed them. He is careful, too, about managing expectations for anyone nervous about the microdose. “Three milligrams is not going to change your life,” he says, “but it’s going to add to what you’re already feeling.” On the course, he says, it keeps him calm and his anxiety in check.
The timing carries a shadow the drinks do not mention. A federal provision tucked into the November 2025 spending deal is set to cap hemp-derived THC at a level that would effectively outlaw beverages like Cann as soon as this fall, and Wade sits among a roster of celebrity investors, including Rosario Dawson, now campaigning to regulate the category rather than ban it. That fight gives his launch an added stake. Half & Half won’t be his last flavor, he promises, having already watched Cann’s team work. “Seeing the mad scientists and seeing how they can put all these flavors together, I’m like, oh yeah, I would love to have this.” For now, though, this is the one riding shotgun in his cart all summer.
“I’m trying to create moments. I’m trying to connect. And I want to make sure I have products to help me do that”
