China Public Opinion News Comprehensive report The United States, where the epidemic continues to run at a high level, has ushered in a new outlet in the past two days: cannabis anti-new crown. An academic study on marijuana to prevent new coronavirus infection has been hyped up by various people. The scientific community is busy explaining that the study is only a very preliminary study and should not be over-interpreted; but some people are simply playing on the topic and trying to market cannabis for profit during the epidemic.
(Image from pixabay)
The scientific community shouted: Don't eat marijuana, it's useless
The storm came earlier this month from a study by several scientists at the University of Oregon in the United States, which was peer-reviewed and published in the academic journal Natural Products. The origin of the study is that scientists use the "affinity-mass spectrometry ( AS-MS) method to find compounds that can prevent the new crown virus from binding to human cells, in short, based on the protein structure of the new crown virus, in many compounds, look for substances that can correspond to this structure and prevent the virus from binding to the human body.
In the screening, the scientists found two substances that can be found in cannabis, CBDA and CBGA, which seem to have the potential to prevent the new crown virus from binding to human cells. These two substances are widely present in cannabis and are not psychoactive substances, so they are relatively readily available and risk-controllable, and have value for further research.
According to the article page, this study on cannabis has been read more than 200,000 times, far more than the general academic literature. (Screenshot of web page)
In the scientific community, "there is value for further research" indicates a rough research direction. Follow-up to go through in vitro experiments, animal experiments, human experiments, but also to study dosage forms, dosing methods, dosages, etc., it can be said that there is still a distance of 18,000 miles from actual use.
In addition, even if these substances are actually extracted from marijuana for use as anti-COVID-19 drugs, it is not the medicinal cannabis cultivated specifically in the U.S. market specifically to extract psychoactive substances. After the study sparked controversy, a Chinese A-share listed company replied to investors' inquiries that they had the ability to extract several substances mentioned in the study from industrial hemp flowers and leaves, and could supply their high-purity crystals.
But as soon as the study was noticed by the local media in the United States, the whole thing immediately became entertaining. The study quickly sparked a frenzy of Cannabis users in the United States.
Jimmy Kimmel, a well-known late-night talk show host in the United States, joked on the show: "Americans have seen so many outrageous anti-coronavirus drugs, some people say that they eat veterinary drugs ivermectin, some people say inject bleach into the body, we all just say 'Oh, this is ridiculous'." As a result, now some people say that smoking marijuana can fight the new crown, and everyone's reaction is 'Aha, I just said that it's good to do this, right?' ’”
The University of Oregon research team had to take the initiative to issue a statement to the media after attracting attention, clarifying widespread misconceptions. The researchers note that there is no evidence that smoking cannabis or consuming cannabis-derived products protects or prevents COVID-19 infection. This study only points the way for the pharmaceutical industry to work next, and does not guide the lives of ordinary people.
What's more, Americans are accustomed to burning marijuana and smoking, but burning will destroy cbda and CBGA substances. That is, those who boast that they have smoked a lot of marijuana and can fight the new crown have never actually ingested what scientists call substances.
See: Cannabis company owners have written to demand continued deregulation of cannabis
A few days ago, Justin Singer, the founder of a cannabis company in Colorado, published an article in the Washington Post to discuss the issue of "cannabis fighting the new crown".
Singh frankly said that until full human experimentation, we did not know whether cannabis extract would be a viable treatment for COVID-19 infection.
But then he took a sharp turn and began to accuse U.S. law of restricting marijuana. Singh said it was because marijuana remained illegal at the U.S. federal level that the experiments could not proceed smoothly and reach definitive conclusions. Any human experiment using cannabis that is approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration must be licensed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and use cannabis samples provided by the National Drug Abuse Institute. These samples tend to be stored for years and are "completely different from the products people use today."
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has always been a thorn in the side of the cannabis industry. (Image from the official website of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration)
In his article, Singh called for the full relaxation of restrictions on cannabis so that research on cannabis can be more easily regulated and "avoid us missing the tragic end of a potential COVID-19 drug." The article even goes on to argue that permission to use U.S. federal financial grants to conduct research is allowed.
American netizens in the Washington Post comment section and on social media responded to the article relatively positively. They endorse the position of legalizing marijuana, ignoring the fact that so-called "potential COVID-19 drugs" are just compounds that can be extracted from industrial hemp.
Since the epidemic, the cannabis industry has "taken advantage" of the epidemic a lot. According to the Global Times, at the beginning of 2021, there was a farce of "vaccination and marijuana delivery" in many states in the United States; the government of neighboring Canada had required that vaccination certificates must be shown to enter marijuana retail outlets, forcing addicts to be vaccinated.
With the legalization of recreational marijuana in many states during the epidemic, the consumption of marijuana in the United States has grown rapidly. However, the marijuana legalization campaign, which was originally under the banner of "generating revenue for the country", did not bring the expected fiscal revenue to the US states. As Previously reported by Huayu, the California government has even provided government subsidies to cannabis companies that are "struggling to operate". Obviously, this time the cannabis company has targeted the government's scientific research funds.