The conventional medical treatment options – methadone and buprenorphine – usually help break opioid craving by targeting the same pathways that opioids use. While they do help in managing the cravings, they do little to protect recovering users from the anxiety caused by environmental triggers. This only leads them back into the trap.

A lot of us have heard of cannabidiol (CBD), a non-intoxicating component of marijuana and hemp (of the Cannabis Sativaspecies), being of significant assistance in breaking the physical intimacy with opioids and alcohol as forms of addiction. There has been quite a bit of research in this area since 2015 [1, 2, 3, 4 & 5].

However, on May 21 this year, a small study [6], published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, found evidence that CBD can, in fact, reduce “cue-induced cravings and anxiety” in individuals having a history of heroin abuse.

The team of scientists at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York conducted the research under the guidance of neuroscientist Yasmin Hurd, who is the director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital.

Hurd and her team of researchers at the Addiction Institute had been at it for quite a few years now [1 & 2], starting with CBD’s effects on animals on heroin. They had found that CBD reduces their tendency to use heroin even when a drug-associated trigger was presented to them. This led them to further study the drug’s effects on humans.