When the New England Cannabis Convention (NECANN) plants its flag in the Midwest for the first time this May, one of the voices shaping the conversation on stage will belong to a Minnesotan. Leah Kollross, founder of Minnesota-based cannabis beverage brand 23rd State, will step into the moderator's chair at the inaugural NECANN Minnesota Cannabis Convention, helping lead a panel discussion at one of the most consequential industry gatherings the state has hosted to date.
The convention runs Thursday, May 14 and Friday, May 15, 2026 at the Minneapolis Convention Center, and Leah's session is part of a programming lineup that brings more than 60 expert speakers and 120+ exhibiting companies into a single room at a pivotal moment for Minnesota's cannabis market. You can view the full programming overview on the NECANN Minnesota Programming Schedule.
For 23rd State — a brand born the same year Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize adult-use cannabis — moderating a panel at the first-ever NECANN Minnesota isn't just a speaking opportunity. It's a homecoming.
Why NECANN Minnesota Matters
NECANN has been the East Coast's anchor cannabis B2B convention since 2014, building a reputation for tight programming, serious operator-to-operator networking, and education that prioritizes substance over spectacle. Minnesota marks the organization's first expansion into the Midwest, and the timing is no accident. Adult-use retail sales in Minnesota officially launched in September 2025, and by the time NECANN's exhibit hall opens in May, the market will be just eight months into its first full year of legal sales.
That's a window where every panel, every conversation, and every connection on the show floor carries outsized weight. Operators are still writing the playbook for what a regulated Minnesota cannabis industry looks like in practice — from cultivation and processing to retail, beverages, branding, and beyond. The rules are being shaped in real time, and so are the businesses navigating them.
The convention is hosted at the Minneapolis Convention Center at 1301 2nd Ave S in downtown Minneapolis, with exhibit hall hours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Thursday and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday. There's also an official NECANN after-party on Thursday night at the Hook & Ladder Theater — a classic NECANN tradition that has historically been where some of the most candid industry conversations actually happen.
Who Is Leah Kollross?
For people new to her work, a quick introduction. Leah Kollross is the founder of 23rd State, a Minnesota-based cannabis beverage company building a portfolio of products designed for the sober-curious, the intentional drinker, and anyone looking for a meaningful alternative to alcohol. The brand's name itself is a tribute to Minnesota's place in the timeline of cannabis reform, and its product lineup — SHAKE, FRESH PRESS, and Blush Crush Infused Bubbly — reflects a broader thesis about what cannabis beverages can be when they're built around dose consistency, harm reduction, and the kind of social ritual people already understand.
Beyond 23rd State, Leah is an active voice in industry policy circles. She serves on the National Cannabis Industry Association's Human Resources Committee and recently authored a widely circulated op-ed in Marijuana Moment arguing that the cannabis beverage industry has an evidence problem — too few brands willing to put their products in front of independent researchers, and too much regulatory risk as a result. The piece was a pointed call for an industry to grow up, and it's exactly the kind of thinking she's expected to bring to the moderator's role at NECANN.
Leah also has roots in Minnesota's hemp seed and cultivation community, which gives her an unusual vantage point. She's not just a beverage operator. She's someone who has watched the hemp and cannabis industries evolve as parallel — and at times conflicting — markets, and who has spent the last several years arguing that the long-term health of both depends on smarter regulatory unification.
That's the kind of perspective a good moderator brings to a panel: enough fluency to ask the sharp question, enough humility to let the panelists do the talking, and enough experience to know when to push and when to listen.
What to Expect From the Panel
Leah's session will pull together a slate of operators, advocates, and policy thinkers for a discussion grounded in where Minnesota cannabis is actually headed — not just where the headlines say it is. Expect a conversation that moves quickly, leaves room for disagreement, and doesn't shy away from the harder questions: How do brands earn consumer trust in a market still finding its footing? What does evidence-based policy actually look like in practice? Where are the real opportunities for Minnesota operators in 2026 and 2027, and where are the traps?
Panels at NECANN tend to reward attendees who come prepared. Bring questions. Bring business cards. And if you're an operator weighing whether to expand into Minnesota — or a Minnesota-based business trying to figure out how to compete — this is the kind of session designed to send you back to your team with something usable on Monday morning.
The full programming schedule, including session times and other speaker lineups, is available on the official NECANN Minnesota schedule page.
Minnesota's Cannabis Moment
It's worth zooming out for a moment, because the context here is the story.
Minnesota's adult-use market is projected to reach roughly $430 million in sales by the end of 2026, with industry analysts projecting growth toward $1.5 billion by 2029. The state's licensing structure — currently capped at 50 cultivator licenses, 24 manufacturer licenses, 150 retailer licenses, and 100 mezzobusiness licenses — is set for a mandated reassessment in July 2026, just two months after the NECANN convention wraps. Whatever conversations happen at the Minneapolis Convention Center in May will, in some real way, inform the conversations happening at the Office of Cannabis Management in July.
That's not lost on the operators showing up. NECANN Minnesota is positioned as the room where the people building Minnesota cannabis — cultivators, processors, retailers, beverage brands, packaging vendors, software providers, lawyers, advocates, and investors — get a working snapshot of where the market actually is. The expected attendance of more than 5,000 industry professionals is large enough to matter and small enough that you'll actually run into the people you came to meet.
For 23rd State, this is also a moment to show up as part of the home team. The brand was founded in 2023 in Minnesota, builds and ships from Minnesota, and has spent the last three years arguing — through product, through press, and through policy work — that Minnesota has a chance to model what a thoughtful, science-grounded cannabis market can look like.
Having Leah on stage as a moderator at the state's first NECANN convention is one more piece of that argument.
Why Cannabis Beverages Are a Conversation Worth Having
The decision to feature voices from the cannabis beverage category at NECANN Minnesota is itself a signal. Beverages are one of the fastest-growing segments in the broader cannabis and hemp marketplace, and they sit at a unique intersection: they look like alcohol, behave like alcohol in social settings, but offer a meaningfully different experience and a meaningfully different harm profile. They've also become one of the most regulatorily contested categories in the country, with state legislatures actively rewriting the rules around hemp-derived and cannabis-derived beverages on a near-monthly basis.
Brands like 23rd State have argued that the long-term path forward isn't to pit hemp beverages against cannabis beverages, or to pretend the consumer cares about the regulatory distinction. The path forward is to build products that consumers can trust, back them with independent research, and engage seriously with policymakers about what good regulation looks like.
That's a conversation tailor-made for a NECANN audience, and it's one Leah is well-positioned to lead.
How to Attend NECANN Minnesota 2026
If you're planning to be there, a few logistics to keep in mind:
- Dates: Thursday, May 14 and Friday, May 15, 2026
- Location: Minneapolis Convention Center, 1301 2nd Ave S, Minneapolis, MN
- Hours: Thursday 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.; Friday 10 a.m. – 3 p.m.
- After-party: Thursday night at the Hook & Ladder Theater
- Registration and full schedule: necann.com/minnesota-convention
Attendees must be 21 or older with valid ID. No cannabis products are sold or distributed at the venue — this is a B2B education and networking event, not a consumer expo.
If you're attending and want to connect with the 23rd State team in person, find Leah at her panel session, or stop by to talk at booth #420. The brand's mission has always been better built in conversation than in copy, and the NECANN show floor is exactly the kind of room where those conversations land.
We'll see you in Minneapolis.
