Can CBD Help Get People Off Opioids?

Ananda Scientific Inc., a biotech pharma firm in the U.S, recently announced that it would soon commence a study on the application of CBD-derived drugs as a medicinal alternative for opioid-use disorder. This announcement came a few days after the company's proposal was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA approved the pharma's CBD-based Nantheia ATL5, an Investigational New Drug (IND), to be used as a potential treatment to cure or manage opioid use disorder.

The epidemic of opioid use disorder

Both Canada and the United States are facing a massive opioid epidemic. Both governments have also approved dozens of research projects to look into potential treatment options for managing opioid use disorder.

In the past two decades, at least 800,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses, many of which can be traced to opioids. From 2019 to this day, about 65% of fatal drug ODs were due to opioids like heroin, synthetic opioids, and prescription opioids. The figure is still rising gradually.

Through decades of research, scientists have developed various treatment options, none of which seems to have a long-lasting effect, as relapse still remains as pervasive as ever. A few of the FDA-approved opioid treatment medications have efficiently eased the grimness of withdrawal symptoms. They have also helped in preventing relapses. The downside is that some of these medications come with their own risks, and they do not have the same impact on all patients. Some of these traditional opiate replacement therapies like methadone and buprenorphine are primarily inaccessible due to legal and logistical constraints.

Cannabis-based medical treatments are one of the novel alternatives being looked into for opiate use disorder therapies. Ananda Scientific Inc. has been able to establish that CBD could help in lessening the severity of opiate use disorder.

Read the full article on Cannabis.net to learn more about Ananda's study, Nantheia, and next steps