Widely shared post misrepresents results of COVID-19 cannabis study

Misleading headlines are circulating on social media with the false claim that marijuana prevents COVID-19 infection. The posts are in response to a study that investigated whether certain cannabis extracts could prevent SARS-CoV-2 from entering cultured cells in a lab. While the study was peer-reviewed and its results do not appear to be in question, the issue is that none of the study’s experiments were conducted in humans and the cannabis extracts it examined are not the compounds ingested or smoked by cannabis users. This can be described as early stage research, perhaps opening the door to further research but itself providing no evidence that marijuana can prevent or treat COVID-19.

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The Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC) was formed in 2020 to coordinate and amplify public health messaging on COVID-19 and increase Americans’ confidence in guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local public health officials.

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