Cannabis Activism Sweeps Twitter: There Are Fifteen Times More Tweets in Favour of Marijuana than Against It

Fifteen times more tweets are posted supporting marijuana than against it, according to a study at Washington University in St. Louis (although the complete results will not be published until February). The research analysed tweets sent to the social network over a one-month period in 2014 and discovered that, of the 7.6 million referring to cannabis, 77% were in favour of it, 18% were neutral, and just 5% were against.

To run their search for those messages the researchers simply used some of the keywords most closely linked to the world of cannabis: “weed,” “stoner,” “bong,” “joint” and “blunt.”

The academics also calculated the number of followers that pro-marijuana Twitter members had, as opposed to the number of people who followed members posting negative messages about the plant. The first category totalled over 50 million followers, around twelve times more than those opposing it.

Through the study they also discovered that many of the users who spoke well of cannabis were younger than 25, especially teenagers, and that most of the positive messages called for marijuana's legalization, promoted its consumption, or spoke of its therapeutic benefits. These results demonstrate that the Internet supports the cannabis movement and that activism by those fighting to enhance marijuana's image grows stronger every day.

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With information from News.wustl.edu, Geekwire.com and Sciencedaily.com