Feds Tell Ex-NFL Star to Stop Saying His Weed Can Cure Coronavirus

The federal government is warning a former National Football League player's company to stop advertising his medicinal cannabis products as treatments for the novel coronavirus.

The Federal Trade Commission and the Food and Drug Administration sent a warning letter to that effect on Tuesday to the Las Vegas headquarters of Neuro XPF, which is owned by former NFL offensive tackle Kyle Turley. Turley insists that CBD, a popular non-psychoactive cannabis derivative, can cure the coronavirus.

In fact, Neuro XPF had an entire page of its website, headlined “CRUSH CORONA,” devoted to those claims. “Your best defense against the COVID-19 blitz starts with a strong immune system,” the page claimed, and “a growing body of scientific evidence shows that CBD can help keep your immune system at the top 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,” Neuro XPF said. “So, we’re making all of our products more affordable.”

Those claims quickly drew the ire of federal regulators that have cracked down of late on advertisements and scams hawking medically dubious coronavirus treatments.

“FDA is taking urgent measures to protect consumers from certain products that, without approval or authorization by FDA, claim to mitigate, prevent, treat, diagnose, or cure COVID-19 in people,” the agencies’ joint letter advised. “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.”

A failure to comply, the agencies warned, “may result in legal action, including, without limitation, seizure and injunction.”

It appears that Turley’s company did, in the end, comply. The CRUSH CORONA page, which was active as late as March 29, has since been taken down. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In his own public communications, Turley, a first-round 1998 NFL draft pick who spent much of his career with the Saints before retiring in 2007, is adamant that his products are a coronavirus panacea. “CBD CAN PREVENT AND CURE THE CORONA VIRUS!” he tweeted last month. He also insists that the drug cured his wife’s skin cancer.

Turley has spurned colleagues in the recreational and medicinal cannabis industry who have criticized him for his outlandish claims about the products’ medical benefits. Critics are “scared to say too much because we don’t want the government, we don’t want the man, to start coming down on us,” he told Marijuana Moment on Tuesday.

“Well guess what?” he added. “I was a first round draft pick, I made millions of dollars, god saved my life through this plant and I live in America. So get used to it...And I’m going to continue to spread his word.”