The recent emergence of SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has resulted in the alarming spread of the highly infectious and contagious COVID-19 pandemic that is causing catastrophic damage and affecting health, life and death around the world [1,2]. SARS-CoV-2 has also created a COVID-19 ‘infodemic’ crisis with an overabundance of information and misinformation about the origin of the virus, potential therapies, and whether it was engineered in the laboratory. However, the global pace of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 research is providing rapid and critical advances in comparison to that of the previous SARS-CoV, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and HIV [1,3,4]. COVID-19 has a protean manifestation, and the cryptic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is characterized by multiple chains of transmission, unlike the SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV viruses that have been reported to occur mainly through nosocomial transmission [3,4]. There are still many unknowns regarding COVID-19, but there are also important lessons to be gleaned from AIDS that are applicable to the COVID-19 pandemic. They are both zoonotic diseases with different mode of transmission, with no vaccine or cure yet; however, there is an effective antiretroviral therapy for AIDS [5,6]. Furthermore, cannabis and cannabinoids have been proposed and used as adjunctive treatment for AIDS-associated cachexia, and in reduction of disease symptoms [7,8]. The processes of inflammation are important in both the pathogenesis of AIDS and COVID-19 [6,8]. Cannabinoids are effective at suppressing immune and inflammatory functions [7–9], and their potential as an anti-inflammatory treatment in COVID-19 has been suggested [8,9].
As the infection with SARS-CoV-2 causes inflammation due to immune response and a ‘cytokine storm’, resulting in a range of mild to no symptoms all the way to severe and critical COVID-19 induced comorbidity and mortality, this Editorial discusses the potential of the pharmacological immune-modulatory effects of cannabinoids that are constituents of the cannabis plant. It is of importance to determine the effects of cannabis and cannabinoid use by those who have not contracted the disease and those who have contracted COVID-19 and the outcomes.