Spanish-language Twitter discourse heavily favored cannabis regulation while underemphasizing health risks

Among 35,527 analyzed Spanish-language tweets about cannabis (2018-2022), 73.2% favored cannabis regulation while only 3.5% expressed opposition. Only 20.4% discussed negative effects on physical or mental health. Regarding therapeutic use, 30.1% were in favor while 69.9% were neutral or against. Significant differences emerged between user types and between cannabis consumers versus non-consumers.

Dataset of tweets posted 2018-2022 in Spanish containing keywords "cannabis," "marihuana," or "hachis." A 500-post subset per keyword was manually coded to establish a codebook, then machine learning classified the remaining 67,173 tweets. After excluding irrelevant tweets, 35,527 were analyzed.

Social media shapes public perception of cannabis, and the significant imbalance between pro-regulation content (73%) and health risk discussion (20%) suggests online discourse may not reflect the full scientific picture. This has implications for how the public forms opinions about legalization.

As more Spanish-speaking countries and regions consider cannabis regulation, the online information environment is heavily weighted toward pro-legalization perspectives with limited health risk discussion. This mirrors patterns seen in English-language social media and may influence policy decisions.

Twitter users are not representative of the general population. Machine learning classification may misclassify tweets. Spanish-language tweets span multiple countries with different cultural contexts and legal frameworks. 2018-2022 timeframe may not reflect current discourse.