Keep Your Marijuana Spray, I Will Just Stick With Raw Cannabis

I meant to blog about this last week, but once again life got in the way. Apparently, there is a new spray out there that will help alleviate marijuana withdrawal symptoms. Anyone who has consumed marijuana day in day out for a long time knows that when you quit consuming marijuana for whatever reason, withdrawal symptoms include lack of appetite, irritability, and the desire to avoid all things that remind you of marijuana. However, when compared to substances like tobacco, caffeine, or sugar, the withdrawals are pretty tame.

When I hear of someone having problems with marijuana withdrawals, I always think of the skit on the movie Half Baked where Bob Sagat stands up and says, “I used to suck d#ck for coke, now that’s an addiction man, you ever sucked some d#ck for marijuana?” It also reminds me of when my friend Matt had to go through diversion for a Minor in Possession offense when we were in high school in the late 90’s. The first time I consumed marijuana with him post diversion, he said, “This is what my counselors call a ‘relapse.’ After we ‘relapse’ we are going to go on a ‘binge’ because we are such hopeless ‘addicts.'” He used the finger quotations and everything to emphasize his sarcasm.

The fact of the matter is, I don’t think that marijuana withdrawals are significant enough to warrant a marijuana withdrawal spray. I think it’s sad when people are forced to quit consuming marijuana for whatever reason that is being forced upon them (often by courts). However, I don’t feel that marijuana is that addictive, so kicking the habit shouldn’t require a synthetic alternative (spice included!). The only way I picture myself using this marijuana spray is if I’m far from home, can’t find marijuana, yet have access to the marijuana spray. At which point I will probably cover my entire body with it in order to ride the higher high. Maybe there are TWB readers out there that disagree, and think that marijuana spray, or anything that helps marijuana withdrawals, is a good invention. Below is an article that was posted by ABC News that talks more about it:

EMILY BOURKE: Smokers have nicotine replacement options to deal with withdrawal symptoms while they’re trying to kick the habit.

For those dependent on marijuana, there’s no equivalent.

But a team from the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre at the University of New South Wales will trial a spray to help with easing marijuana withdrawal symptoms.

The centre’s director Professor Jan Copeland is speaking here with AM’s Timothy McDonald.

JAN COPELAND: There is about 200,000 Australians who use cannabis daily, about 1 per cent of the population who currently meet criteria for cannabis dependence.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: So how will this drug help people who are going through withdrawal symptoms from marijuana dependence?

JAN COPELAND: Well, this is rather like the nicotine replacement therapy for cannabis smokers. It is a really exciting new development in the management of cannabis withdrawal and it is a pharmaceutical extract of botanical cannabis so it is a natural whole plant organically growth product and it is used as a mouth spray.

So this removes all the smoking related problems association with cannabis and it also has an optimal balance of the two main components of cannabis because of course there is about 500 chemicals and 80 of those are different kinds of cannabinoids.

So has a low dose THC because we don’t want people to get stoned, we just want to help them settle down with their levels of cannabis use and also relatively high doses of CBD which is the good cannabis which reduces anxiety and has anti-psychotic effects.

So in that way we can fully activate the body’s cannabis receptors and smooth down the peaks of withdrawal to allow people to then engage in the available medical and psychological care.

TIMOTHY MCDONALD: Just in terms of people who actually try to stop smoking cannabis, are the withdrawal systems something that often stop them from doing so?

JAN COPELAND: Yes, in fact it is one of the main reasons that people have problems stopping. It is like tobacco withdrawal but different and of course we all know people that say it is easy to give up tobacco, I’ve done it a thousand times. It is a similar kind of situation here.

It is not a life threatening withdrawal such as alcohol but some people have extreme problems with their sleep, they have problems with feeling really irritable and in fact outbursts of anger. Their appetites are disturbed and things like that and it really is enough over a few days to you know, drive them back to using again.

Helping people manage withdrawal is really going to set them on the pathway to long-term abstinence.

EMILY BOURKE: Jan Copeland from the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre.