EventsThe 3rd International Electronic Conference on Environmental Research and Public Health —Public Health Issues in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Event submissions
Published
with-doi10.3390/ECERPH-3-09041
This submission belongs to the session I. Public Health Statistics and Risk Assessment of the event The 3rd International Electronic Conference on Environmental Research and Public Health —Public Health Issues in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Published date
11 Jan, 2021
Citation
Tianze Sun, Carmen Lim, Gary Chan, Janni Leung, High times for cannabis-related videos on YouTube during the COVID-19 lockdown: implications on the risk of cannabis use disorders, in Proceedings of The 3rd International Electronic Conference on Environmental Research and Public Health —Public Health Issues in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic, 11 January–25 January 2021, MDPI: Basel, Switzerland, doi: 10.3390/ECERPH-3-09041
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High times for cannabis-related videos on YouTube during the COVID-19 lockdown: implications on the risk of cannabis use disorders

Tianze Sun 1
Carmen Lim 1,2,3
Gary Chan 1
image
Janni Leung 1,4
1. National Centre for Youth Substance Use Research, The University of Queensland
2. Queensland Brain Institute, The University of Queensland
3. Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, The Park Centre for Mental Health,
4. The School of Psychology, The University of Queensland
Abstract

As a social media platform with billions of daily views, YouTube is a catalyst for influencing behaviour. During the pandemic, many found themselves turning to platforms like YouTube as a source of information and entertainment. This paper investigated the content of cannabis videos on YouTube during COVID-19. The impact of COVID-19 on cannabis use in the community was assessed by identifying 75 YouTube videos uploaded from March-May of 2020. We found that the contents of these videos display the impact of COVID-19 on cannabis use through four key reoccurring themes; (1) buying cannabis (45%), (2) promotion of health claims (36%), (3) the push for legalization (13%) and (4) safety information (5%). More vigorous monitoring and tighter restrictions around social media is required to mitigate the risk of misinformation and normalisation, especially among those who are most vulnerable, such as individuals with cannabis use disorder.

Keywords
COVID19
Cannabis
Social media
YouTube
Manuscript
042064.pdf
The occurrence of the psychosomatic symptoms during the coronavirus pandemics.
SANITARY, HYGIENIC AND ORGANIZATIONAL CRITERIA FOR REDUCING THE RISK OF COVID-19