The Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission have warned the co-owner of a Moreno Valley cannabis dispensary not to claim that cannabidiol, known as CBD, can cure the novel coronavirus.
Former NFL All-Pro offensive lineman Kyle Turley played football for Valley View High in Moreno Valley before playing for the New Orleans Saints, St. Louis Rams and Kansas City Chiefs. Turley moved back to the Inland Empire in 2014 and is co-owner of Moreno Valley’s first dispensary, Shango Moreno Valley, which opened March 13. The Shango chain has licenses for dispensaries in California, Michigan, Missouri, Oregon and Nevada.
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On Tuesday, March 31, the agencies wrote a joint letter to Turley, warning about claims he’d made on the website for his Las Vegas-based CBD distributor, Neuro XPF, and on social media. He’s since taken down the claims on his website, though Turley stands by his statements.
CBD is one of more than 100 compounds found in cannabis. The chemical doesn’t make consumers high. But enthusiasts say it has potential medical benefits, including easing seizures, calming anxiety and reducing inflammation. So far, the FDA doesn’t back those claims. It’s only approved one CBD product for prescription medical use, Epidiolex, which treats two rare and severe forms of epilepsy.
“Your website offers cannabidiol (CBD) products for sale in the United States and that these products are intended to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure COVID-19 in people,” the letter reads in part. “We request that you take immediate action to cease the sale of such unapproved and unauthorized products for the mitigation, prevention, treatment, diagnosis, or cure of COVID-19.”
According to the letter, Turley’s website claimed that CBD could boost users’ immune systems, and enable them to fight off COVID-19.
“While scientists around the world are working 24/7 to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, it will take many more months of testing before it’s approved and available,” the letter quotes from a now-deleted page on the Neuro XPF website. “CBD can help keep your immune system at the stop of its game … We want everyone to take CBD and take advantage of its potential to help prepare your body to fight a coronavirus infection.”
Turley has long promoted cannabis as an alternative to traditional medicines, crediting its use to helping him end a 20-year reliance on opiod painkillers and what he says are his family members’ exceptional health.
“I personally haven’t been sick in over six years since I’ve given up all pharmaceuticals,” Turley said Thursday, April 2. “I use cannabis daily and that speaks to this science.”
According to Turley, use of cannabis and CBD has cured his vertigo, neuropathy and light sensitivity, the legacies of head injuries suffered during his football career. And, he says, it’s cured his wife of what had been recurring cases of skin cancer.
“We had to watch them cut holes in her body,” he said. “As soon as we discovered CBD oils and CBD daily, these skin cancers have not come back.”
Turley pointed to a 2008 study funded by the National Institutes of Health examining the effects of CBD on the immune systems of mice.
“This is not me, crazy Kyle Turley, saying this,” he said. “CBD alone helps boost the immune system and is documented and scientifically proven to have anti-viral properties.”
And Turley has been making his feelings on the subject known as COVID-19 spread through the United States. Throughout March, he repeatedly claimed that CBD could prevent and cure the coronavirus, including in tweets on March 8, 29 and 30.
The federal government wasn’t having it.
It’s illegal “to advertise that a product can prevent, treat, or cure human disease unless you possess competent and reliable scientific evidence, including, when appropriate, well-controlled human clinical studies, substantiating that the claims are true at the time they are made,” the FDA warned Turley. “For COVID-19, no such study is currently known to exist for the products identified above. Thus, any coronavirus-related prevention or treatment claims regarding such products are not supported by competent and reliable scientific evidence. You must immediately cease making all such claims.”
Failure to do so would result in a fine.
“We would like to reaffirm that nothing in the letter raises any issues or concerns regarding the safety of any NeuroXPF product,” A written statement from NeuroXPF reads in part. “We have promptly responded to the FDA and intend to fully cooperate and remain compliant with all rules and regulations.”
Although the company took those claims off the Neuro XPF website, Turley hasn’t changed his tune on Twitter.
“The FDA will one day acknowledge the power of cannabis and its ability to prevent and cure COVID-19 and every other disease,” he wrote Wednesday.
Turley has been butting heads with the FDA for five years, ever since he got into the cannabis business, he said.
“They’ve been sending letters left and right,” he said. “They have been since day one.”
For many businesses, opening just before California largely shut down would be the kiss of death. But Turley said that Shango, like other dispensaries around the state — which are classified as essential businesses — has been doing great. That’s because, he said, customers believe in the healing power of cannabis.
“If we’re going to win this war, we need all hands on deck,” Turley said. “We need to use everything we’ve got.”
Staff writer Ryan Hagen contributed to this story.