A quick reminder from the French government: Cocaine doesn't treat coronavirus

Bogus home remedies are cropping up as fast the fear of coronavirus spreads. Most of them are pretty innocuous, the usual “immune boosting” miracle cures that won’t actually help and also probably won’t hurt you. But, in a darkly hilarious debunk of “alternative” medicine, the French government had to issue an official warning to citizens that cocaine will not cure coronavirus.

The rumor started on Facebook at the end of January and quickly spread to Twitter. As you might imagine, the tweaked up image of a news alert that read, “Cocaine Cures Coronavirus: Scientists Discover How A Class A Drug Can Defeat An Epidemic” went viral. The post wasn’t a scientific hoax, just a sophomoric prank. PolitiFact quickly investigated the purported cocaine cure-all and found that the image was doctored and Facebook removed the post, but it’s still lingering on Twitter, where enthusiastic users are reposting with comments like, “It’s about to be a dope year.”

Unfortunately, despite the temporary buzz, coke actually ravages your sinuses and folks who snort cocaine over a prolonged period become more prone to sinus infection. The proposition that cocaine has medicinal value hasn’t been in vogue since the Victorian age, and the idea that it can “sanitize the inside of your nose,” as one user suggested, is patently absurd.

This is not the first outrageous coronavirus remedy that the internet has spawned. Tito’s vodka had to remind customers a few days ago that vodka is not hand sanitizer. “Per the CDC, hand sanitizer needs to contain at least 60% alcohol. ,” Tito’s quipped on their Twitter feed. “Tito's Handmade Vodka is 40% alcohol, and therefore does not meet the current recommendation of the CDC.” Alcohol may drown a lot of sorrows, my friends, just not this one.