Exploring Twitter chatter to assess the type and availability of cannabis-related products in Thailand

Abstract

Cannabis-related tweets were collected between January and April 2022 to estimate the availability and characteristics of cannabis products advertised on Twitter amid the legalization of recreational cannabis in Thailand. The Twitter API was called using the tweepy Python library to collect cannabis-related tweets in the Thai language. A total of 185,558 unique tweets were collected over the duration of the data collection period based on 83 search terms. Twenty thousand random tweets were manually coded by four Thai native speakers to assess the volume and characteristics of tweets proposing cannabis. 72.6% of collected tweets from the 20,000 random samples were coded as relevant to the study. 54.6% of relevant tweets were advertising cannabis products, 29.8% were personal communications, and 15.6% were related to news or media content. Among the tweets that advertised cannabis products, 94.4% proposed cannabis flower, 2.4% cannabis edibles and 1.8% cannabis concentrates. Consumption of potent forms of cannabis such as cannabis edibles and concentrates increase the risk of harmful side-effects, especially in a population with limited knowledge about these products. Our findings call for additional monitoring efforts and for increasing the public awareness on potent cannabis products emerging in Thailand.

Keywords:

• Cannabis
• Twitter (X)
• Thailand
• social media
• cannabis legalization

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 4/20 or 4:20 or 420 is a cultural slang originated from the United States, which signals the time for cannabis users to gather and consume cannabis.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT), Grant No. NRCT5-RSA63015-10 (Lamy, PI). The funding source had no further role in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data, in the writing of the report, or in the decision to submit the article for publication.