The FDA recently approved a new CBD drug for study as a treatment for opioid addiction. Neurobiologist Yasmeed Hurd explains the research that led to this moment.
In the last several years, there have been many studies looking into CBD’s efficacy for a wide range of conditions. Many of these results have been promising, but so far, the FDA has only approved one CBD-based medication, Epidiolex, intended to treat seizures.
But in January, Ananda Scientific announced that the FDA had approved their CBD pharmaceutical, (called “Nantheia ATL5”) as an Investigational New Drug. This designation means that Ananda can use Nantheia ATL5 for a human clinical trial to evaluate it as a treatment for opioid use disorder.
The opioid epidemic has swept across the US over the last decade, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths. With extremely high rates of relapse, recovery from opioid addiction is not easy (to say the least). But for those struggling to recover from opioid addiction, there are pharmaceutical treatments, such as methadone and buprenorphine, which do help reduce opioid use as well as the risk of overdoses.
However, according to the Recovery Research Institute, these medications can be difficult to access. And one of the barriers to accessing these treatments is a concern that, because they create a sense of euphoria, the treatments themselves could be misused. So the search for an accessible, non-psychoactive treatment for opioid use disorder has taken on a deep sense of urgency.
