Published in July, the study Larvicidal Activity of Hemp Extracts and Cannabidiol against the Yellow Fever Mosquito Aedes aegypti, from the College of Food & the College of Pharmacy at Ohio State University, found that cannabidiol (CBD) achieves a 100% mortality rate when used against mosquito larvae.
The study was done by air-drying hemp leaves, doing an alcohol extraction, removing the alcohol to test the final result, and that final result was fed to the larvae along with their food.
Though the timeline varied with different concentrations of CBD, every version they tested reached 100% mortality among the larvae. Interestingly, they currently don’t have an understanding of how this process is occurring, but “only a relatively low amount is required to produce high mortality values in larvae,” said Martinez Rodriguez, the lead author.
This study did not investigate the effects of these same hemp extracts on bees & other insects, so there is clearly lots of room for more research before we start mass spraying CBD as a pesticide. But this is a great start, and every time that another study like this is published, it opens the door for even more studies like it. Eventually, this seems likely to eliminate all of the government excuses for keeping hemp & cannabis regulated in any way.
Read the whole paper:
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/15/7/517
Journal Reference:
Martínez Rodríguez EJ, Phelan PL, Canas L, Acosta N, Rakotondraibe HL, Piermarini PM. Larvicidal Activity of Hemp Extracts and Cannabidiol against the Yellow Fever Mosquito Aedes aegypti. Insects. 2024; 15(7):517. https://doi.org/10.3390/insects15070517
