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Study finds CBD effective in treating heroin addiction
For their study, published Tuesday in the American Journal of Psychiatry, [Yasmin] Hurd and her colleagues looked at 42 adults who had a recent history of heroin use and were not using methadone or buprenorphine.
Recruited from social services groups, halfway houses and treatment centers, the participants had used heroin for an average of 13 years, and most had gone less than a month without using. They had to abstain from any heroin use for the entire trial period.
The participants were divided into three groups: one group given 800 milligrams of CBD, another 400 milligrams of CBD and another a placebo. All the participants were dosed once daily for three consecutive days and followed over the next two weeks.
During those two weeks, over the course of several sessions, the participants were shown images or videos of nature scenes as well as images of drug use and heroin-related paraphernalia, like syringes and packets of powder that resembled heroin. They were then asked to rate their craving for heroin and their levels of anxiety.
A week after the last administration of CBD, those who had been given CBD had a two- to three-fold reduction in cravings relative to the placebo group. Hurd said the difference between the two CBD groups was insignificant. The research team also measured heart rate and cortisol, the "stress hormone," and found that the levels in those who got CBD were significantly lower than those who hadn't received the drug
Cannabidiol for the Reduction of Cue-Induced Craving and Anxiety in Drug-Abstinent Individuals With Heroin Use Disorder: A Double-Blind Randomized Placebo-Controlled Trial (DOI: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2019.18101191) (DX)
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @06:51AM (5 children)
How is this politicalization'?
How is this, under whatever name, going to make the things worse?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @07:08AM (4 children)
Look up the criteria for being a schedule 1 drug:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @07:43AM (3 children)
How about I really answer the question instead of being handwavy with a tangentially related link?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @08:12AM (2 children)
I feel like I'm communicating with a bot or small child with little understanding of the world and only canned responses available.
Any medical use accepted by the DEA means a drug cannot be schedule 1, which is the path to lgalization.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Wednesday May 22 2019, @09:25AM (1 child)
And if a valid medical use is found, should we just ignore it because it offends your own personal view of how things should be? Any drug that is found to help us cope with pain, heal ourselves or prevent or reduce other more serious medical problems from occurring should be researched and, if proven to be useful, employed in a controlled manner. I would agree that drug abuse is something that we should strive to prevent, but drugs used in a controlled manner by qualified doctors under clearly specified conditions must be fair game.
Do you use sticking plasters to cover a wound? How about analgesics to combat headaches or minor pains? Where should the line be drawn regarding which drugs are acceptable and which are not?
Perhaps you need to explain your point of view more clearly rather than making a sweeping statement that appears to others as nothing more than your personal view of how things should be. You are entitled to your view, but you are not the final arbiter of what medical research is permitted and what is not.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday May 22 2019, @05:31PM
Well, the DEA agrees with the AC, unfortunately.
Schedule 1 is defined as "no medical use." Yet, medical use has already been established but the DEA chooses to ignore that evidence.