CBD Could Treat Heroin Addiction, Study Finds
- Cali Cannabis Marketplace
- May 22, 2019
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 6, 2019
May 22, 2019 09:13 PM By Leian Naduma
A new study has claimed that cannabidiol (CBD) can treat opioid and heroin addiction. The cannabis component was recently tested on drug addiction patients who were then found to have reduced cravings and minimal anxiety.
Yasmin Hurd, the lead researcher of the study published in American Association for the Advancement of Science and director of the Addiction Institute of Mount Sinai, said intense cravings of illicit drugs are what drive patients to use them. For the study, they administered CBD in some patients as an experimental medication to see if it could dampen their cravings and minimize the risk of relapse or overdose.
They tested CBD on 42 adults who have had a history with heroin use but did not use buprenorphine and methadone, which are common medications for opioid addiction. The patients were said to have used illegal drugs for an average of 14 years and most had gone less than a month without ingesting heroin. For the purpose of the study, they had to abstain from heroin use altogether.
The participants were grouped into three where one cluster was given 800 milligrams of CBD through Epidiolex, which is the first FDA-approved cannabis-based medication; the second was given 400 milligrams and another placebo and the third was not given any CBD. They took the medication once a day for three consecutive days and this continued on for two weeks. During the period, the patients were shown pictures and videos of nature scenes and those that correlated with illegal drugs and their paraphernalia including images that resembled heroin. During the trials, the patients were asked to rate their anxiety levels and whether the images and videos intensified their cravings or not.
The results showed that those who took CBD had significantly reduced their cravings. Their heart rate and cortisol were also lower than those who did not take CBD. Hurd and her team then concluded that their findings proved that Epidiolex can be the key in developing a medicine for heroin and opioid addiction since it has exact concentration and its other ingredients are known.
The participants, however, reported that they had suffered mild diarrhea, tiredness and headaches. The same symptoms occurred in another study that Hurd ran which also involved CBD.
May 22, 2019 09:13 PM By Leian Naduma
Image: Marijuana as a source of CBD oil SeaweedJeezus/Pixabay
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