Viruses, Viroids, and Cannabis: A Brief Primer

At one point not so long in the past, it was commonly said amongst the cannabis cultivation community that “cannabis doesn’t get viruses.” That cannabis’ closest cousin – hops – has multiple known viruses and viroids of significant impact should have been enough to put this statement in doubt. Today’s article should put this fallacy to rest and in the process give the reader a better understanding of what viruses and their lesser known relative, viroids, are; explain some of the challenges in detecting both novel and known viral and viroid agents in cannabis; and provide a list of some viral/viroid agents definitively known to infect cannabis.

An Introduction to Viruses and Viroids

Viruses are non-living, biological entities, with a nucleic acid genome coding for one or