Over 26,000 Cannabis Products Online Make Health Claims, Often Unverified

Among 624,805 cannabis product listings on Leafly and Weedmaps, 1.9% and 4.47% respectively included specific health benefit claims. The top 5 advertised benefits were mood disorders, general discomfort, general wellness, sleep disorders, and chronic conditions. Among consumer reviews of products with health claims, 82.4% expressed positive sentiment toward the claimed health benefit.

Four-phase exploratory analysis: data mining of Leafly (50,951 products) and Weedmaps (573,854 products) US listings, text matching and content coding for health claims, consumer review sentiment analysis, and ANOVA testing differences in claims by route of administration.

Unverified health claims on cannabis product listings could mislead consumers into using cannabis for conditions where evidence is limited or absent. The scale of this phenomenon (26,000+ products) highlights a regulatory gap in the cannabis marketplace.

As cannabis markets mature, the gap between marketing claims and scientific evidence remains a significant consumer protection issue. This study provides the first large-scale quantification of health claims in the US cannabis marketplace, a space that operates largely outside FDA advertising regulations.

Only two platforms were analyzed, which may not represent all cannabis retail. Text matching may miss indirect health claims or marketing language that implies benefits without explicit claims. Cannot verify whether products actually deliver the claimed benefits.