Can CBD help turn people off opioids?

Ananda Scientific Inc., a US-based biotech pharmaceutical company, recently announced that it will soon start a study on the use of CBD-derived medicines as a medical alternative for opioid use disorders. This announcement came days after the company’s proposal was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA approved the pharmaceutical company’s CBD-based Nantheia ATL5, an Investigational New Drug (IND) for use as a potential treatment to cure or treat opioid use disorders.

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 explore potential treatment options for treating opioid use disorders.

Over the past two decades, at least 800,000 Americans have died from drug overdoses, many of which can be traced back to opioids. From 2019 to date, about 65% of drug excess deaths were due to opioids such as heroin, synthetic opioids, and prescription opioids. The number is still steadily increasing.

Through decades of research, scientists have developed various treatment options, none of which seem to have a long-lasting effect as relapses remain as ubiquitous as ever. Some of the FDA-approved opioid treatment drugs have been effective in relieving the severity of withdrawal symptoms. They have also helped prevent relapses. The downside is that some of these medications come with their own risks and don’t work the same way in all patients. Some of these traditional opiate replacement therapies such as methadone and buprenorphine are inaccessible mainly due to legal and logistical constraints.

Cannabis-based medical treatments are one of the novel alternatives being explored for opiate use disorder therapies. Ananda Scientific Inc. found that CBD could help reduce the severity of opiate use disorder.

Details of Ananda’s study

The new clinical study will be conducted at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles. According to the press release, the National Institute on Substance Abuse is funding the nine-week program.

Sohail R. Zaidi wrote that the new study would go a long way in advancing clinical development efforts targeting opioid addiction. Non-addictive therapy is the best option for patients suffering from an opioid use disorder, and this new drug, Nantheia, may be. The goal of the research is to determine the potential safety and effectiveness of CBD as an alternative therapy for patients with opioid use disorders. It would replace existing treatments such as buprenorphine and naloxone.

The summary of the proposal indicated that 60 volunteers would be recruited from the Tarzana Treatment Center in Los Angeles. The center treats its patients with buprenorphine and naloxone therapy.

The study’s lead investigators are Richard De La Garza, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioural Sciences and Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at the same Institute, Edythe London.

About Nantheia, ATL 5.

Nantheia is a soft gel capsule that is taken orally. Each pill contains 100mg of CBD. Ananda’s Liquid Structure technology, licensed from Lyotropic Delivery Systems, has contributed immensely to the manufacture of the drug. The delivery system ensures that the CBD effects are enhanced and stabilized upon ingestion. It has also helped create a mechanism to facilitate voluntary opioid sparing from cannabidiol therapeutics.

The latest FDA approval is the fourth IND approval for Nantheir’s product line. According to Zaidi, these approvals align with the company’s vision to make CBD one of the critical treatments for opioid use disorders. The drug opens up a new avenue for CBD therapeutics to improve opioid uptake in patients battling opioid addiction.

The development of this crucial and promising therapeutic alternative will positively impact the lives of millions of people in North America suffering from opiate use disorders. Zaidi added that the well-being of these people would be improved as applications for the Nantheia drug line progressed.

In a press release, Dr. London said she was optimistic about working with Ananda. She added that this clinical trial is a start in solving the opiate epidemic that has swept North America. The process would begin once the volunteers are recruited. Now that the IND has been approved, there is little reason to hold back the progress of this study.

Analgesics with CBD-derived drugs

Opioids and cannabis are mainly used as analgesics. Both work remarkably well in relieving chronic pain. Since the start of medical cannabis programs in states in the US and Canada, statistics show that patients prefer cannabis over opioids. This resulted in a 40% reduction in opioid use. Fewer patients report side effects after taking cannabis medication than their opioid counterparts. Little research has produced reliable literature to show why cannabis consistently shows better pain relief than opioid doses. Fewer have also determined why cannabis could be a potential treatment for opioid addiction treatment.

Ananda Scientific Inc. is one of the few companies to partner with research institutes to evaluate the medical benefits of cannabinoids. The company is one of the pioneers of high-profile clinical trials using impressive delivery technologies to make cannabis compounds more bioavailable. Many of the company’s nutraceuticals are available in the US, UK and Canada. Expansion plans are in the works to introduce the wonders of cannabis-derived medicines to Africa, Australia, Europe and China.

bottom line

Ananda and UCLA are working on a drug that could significantly reduce the number of opioid-related deaths in the United States, Canada and the rest of the world. While primary care physicians work tirelessly every day to identify and treat people with opioid use disorders, it is commendable that a clinical study is being conducted to offer more efficient, longer-lasting treatment options to resolve opioid addiction cases. The FDA should also seek to approve other clinical trials investigating the use of cannabis as an alternative or adjunctive treatment for opioid use disorders. This is better than waiting for Ananda team to provide solutions.

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