Instagram posts about medical cannabis mostly focus on advertising, but personal stories get the most engagement | Research

The takeaway

An analysis of 1,466 Instagram posts with cannabinoid hashtags found that a third were advertising, a quarter shared personal experiences, and personal stories received the most likes.

Public health communicators, social media researchers, and anyone interested in how cannabis information spreads online.

33% of cannabis-related Instagram posts were advertising

What the researchers found

Of 1,466 Instagram posts with cannabis-related hashtags, 33% focused on advertising/commercialization, 26% on personal experience, 20% on educational content, and 21% on other topics. Personal experience posts received the most engagement.

Why it matters

Social media is a major source of health information for many people. Understanding what cannabis-related content looks like on Instagram reveals how much is commercial vs. educational and where misinformation risks may concentrate.

The numbers in context

1,466 posts analyzed. 81.79% were deemed relevant to cannabis/cannabinoids. 70.74% were in English. Organizations published more posts, but personal stories received more likes.

How the study worked

Researchers used the Apify platform to collect Instagram posts from 2023-2024 containing cannabinoid-related hashtags. Posts were categorized by content type, language, and source (individual vs. organization), then analyzed using RStudio.

What this study cannot tell us

Limited to Instagram and specific hashtags, so findings may not generalize to other platforms. Content categorization involved subjective judgment. No assessment of accuracy of health claims in posts.

How to read the evidence

Descriptive social media analysis with no clinical outcomes. Useful for understanding information landscape but not treatment effects.

When this study was published

2024 study analyzing posts from 2023-2024.

The bigger picture

As cannabis becomes more mainstream, social media increasingly shapes public perception of its medical uses. The dominance of advertising content and the emotional pull of personal anecdotes highlight the gap between marketing and evidence-based information.

Questions still open

How does cannabis health content on Instagram compare to platforms like TikTok or Reddit? Are users who engage with personal cannabis stories more likely to try cannabis products?

Common questions

What kind of cannabis content is most common on Instagram?

Advertising and commercialization made up the largest share (33%), followed by personal experiences (26%) and educational content (20%).

What type of posts got the most engagement?

Personal experience stories received the most likes, suggesting a strong emotional connection between audiences and first-person cannabis narratives.

Read the original research

Efficiency and safety of cannabinoid medical use: an analysis of discussions and observed trends on Instagram.

Frontiers in public health, 12, 1494018

View on PubMed ↗Publisher’s paper ↗

Citation

Litvinova, Olena; Baral, Bikash; Wochele-Thoma, Thomas; Matin, Maima; Tzvetkov, Nikolay T; Adamska, Olga; Kamińska, Agnieszka; Łapiński, Marcin; Stolarczyk, Artur; Atanasov, Atanas G. (2024). Efficiency and safety of cannabinoid medical use: an analysis of discussions and observed trends on Instagram.. Frontiers in public health, 12, 1494018. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2024.1494018