You’ve probably seen the headlines: “Marijuana can cure COVID-19!” “Cannabis proven to help with COVID-19 illness!”
The actual truth is something far more complicated.
Last month, researchers at the Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University published a study in the Journal of Natural Products which found that a pair of acids found in hemp could help prevent COVID-19 infections or prevent serious illness.Â
But when it comes to scientific research, marijuana is unlike any other substance. It’s caught up in a tangled web of federal regulations and plant biology, creating a deep divide between what’s grown or studied in a lab and what’s ingested by millions of marijuana users daily.Â
Let’s take a look at how this works, and if marijuana can really cure COVID-19.Â
What happened in this study?
Researchers with the Global Hemp Innovation Center at Oregon State University published a study in January that found a pair of acids found in cannabis — cannabigerolic acid, or CBG-A, and cannabidolic acid, CBD-A — binds to the “spike protein” that the COVID-19 virus uses to infect people.
That spike protein is the same one targeted by the COVID-19 vaccines and other therapies used to prevent serious illness from the virus.
“The acids from hemp, could be used to prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection and also to shorten infections by preventing virus particles from infecting human cells,” Dr. Richard van Breemen, the lead researcher on the project, said in a statement.
He didn’t return a request for comment.
So I can smoke weed and I won’t get sick from COVID-19?
No.
In fact, if you smoke weed, you’ll destroy the CBG-A and CBG-D acids completely.
“if you smoke it, if you vape it, if you bake it into something, those compounds are actually gone,” said Dr. David Nathan, a Princeton psychiatrist and founder of Doctors for Cannabis Regulation, an advocacy group of medical professionals calling for the end of cannabis prohibition. “This only comes from the raw hemp plant, or you have to specially prepare it for it to make a difference.”
In interviews, van Breeman has suggested a product along the lines of a dietary supplement. But that wouldn’t replace traditional medical treatment, he said.Â
“I don’t advocate these particular compounds as a treatment or cure for someone who’s hospitalized and severely ill,” van Breeman told Vice.com.”I think we need combinations of therapies that might include drugs that stop the virus at other points in its lifecycle for that.
“I think this is a good place to use this (hemp) dietary supplement. I think it can help keep people healthy.”Â
OK, so if I take a weed pill, I won’t get sick from COVID-19?
The answer is still no.
Let’s start with the basics. The Oregon State researchers didn’t really study marijuana — they studied hemp, which is legally required to contain less than 0.3% of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), that psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.
Even if it’s a high-CBD strain, a quarter-ounce of medical marijuana you purchased at an alternative treatment center — or you were gifted by a friend without payment (because you’d never break the law, right?) — is nothing like the hemp tested by the researchers.
And when the hemp was tested, it was with human cells in a laboratory. The hemp wasn’t tested on humans, like the COVID-19 vaccines were.
Many pharmaceutical treatments are proven ineffective when they’re transitioned from laboratory testing to human testing.
“Seeing something work in vitro is not the same as seeing it work in the human body,” Nathan said.
When will they do the research necessary?Â
Marijuana will never be researched or tested like other pharmaceutical drugs until it’s legalized — or, at least, de-scheduled — at the federal level.Â
Even though 18 states have now legalized weed for adult use, the federal government still considers it a Schedule I drug which, by definition, means it has no medicinal value.Â
Most scientific research is conducted at universities, the vast majority of whom receive some level of federal funding. Bringing an illegal, Schedule I drug on campus is a felony — which places that funding in jeopardy.Â
“A lot of claims about cannabis are based on anecdotal evidence, because the studies still can’t be done,” Nathan said. “There’s no way you could have done a good, prospective, double-blind, placebo-controlled study.”Â
For years, the only way marijuana could be researched was through a cannabis farm at the University of Mississippi, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Drug Enforcement Agency have issued exactly one permit for educational marijuana growth, at the University of Mississippi.
But researchers nationwide have long said that the lab-grown cannabis bares little resemblance to the drug that’s bought and sold by dealers, legally or illegally, across the country. The University of Colorado even outfitted a van to get around having to use the NIDA cannabis.
One board member of Doctors for Cannabis Regulation even described it as “brown, muddy garbage.”Â
For the last several years, the Justice Department has been exploring increasing the number of federally-funded cannabis growers.
In May 2021, the DEA announced it was finalizing memorandums of agreements with potential new marijuana manufacturers.Â
But what about CBD? Isn’t that legal?Â
Yes, CBD — the non-psychoactive component in marijuana — is legal, according to the same federal laws that legalized hemp.Â
But the Federal Drug Administration has refused to regulate it. So even if researchers have been able to tap into the plant’s potential, there’s no way to know if the product you’re actually purchasing is, for example, proven to work as an anti-inflammatory … or if it’s essentially just snake oil.Â
Even if a label says that a product is heavy in CBD, you can’t really be sure. The FDA hasn’t tested that product, as they would any other health product.Â
“We’re much better off with a regulated supply than an unregulated supply,” Nathan said. “Because cannabis is not going away.”Â
Mike Davis has spent the last decade covering New Jersey local news, marijuana legalization, transportation and a little bit of everything else. He’s won a few awards that make his parents very proud. Contact him at mdavis@gannettnj.com or @byMikeDavis on Twitter.
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