Cannabis addiction treatments? - FAAH inhibitors, Ro 61-8048, & Baclofen

[Changa707]

Greetings all, I have been smoking a mixture of cannabis and tobacco daily for 5 years and am looking for some kind of replacement, as my goal is to quit. Many people don't take cannabis dependence seriously, but for some individuals it can be very debilitating. Although the physical w/d are less severe than say benzos or opiates, the psychological addiction can be equally as strong for some people.

However the good news is that there are quite a few studies being done on the pharmacological treatment of cannabis dependence.

Below I have posted excerpts regarding the effectiveness of various substances, accompanied by links to each article.


Baclofen - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3171994/

During active cannabis smoking, baclofen dose-dependently decreased craving for tobacco and cannabis, but had little effect on mood during abstinence and did not decrease relapse. Mirtazapine improved sleep during abstinence, and robustly increased food intake, but had no effect on withdrawal symptoms and did not decrease cannabis relapse. Overall, this human laboratory study did not find evidence to suggest that either baclofen or mirtazapine show promise for the treatment of cannabis withdrawal.

Ro 51-8048 - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3171994/

But when the researchers increased their kynurenic acid levels with Ro 61-8048, they chose to consume about 80 percent less THC. After the drug wore off, and their kynurenic acid levels decreased to normal, they went right back to hitting the THC levers rapidly.

URB597 - http://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...mical-a-cure-for-marijuana-addiction-1638924/

One such agent, the FAAH inhibitor URB597, selectively increased anandamide levels in the brain of rodents and primates. Preclinical studies showed that URB597 produced analgesic, anxiolytic-like, and antidepressant-like effects in rodents, which were not accompanied by overt signs of abuse liability. This evidence suggests that FAAH inhibitors such as URB597 might offer a possible therapeutic avenue for the treatment of cannabis withdrawal.

Does anyone out there have experiences with using any of these substances, specifically to treat cannabis dependency? Which substance seems most promising, or worth trying out? Are there any other substances worth looking at? I understand that URB597 and Ro 51-8048 are very expensive and difficult to obtain, while Baclofen is common but also has many side effects as far as i'm aware (along with not being proven effective). On that note, would you rather be dependent on baclofen or cannabis?

I am surprised that I can't find any posts on bluelight regarding this topic, and feel left in the dark...considering that all the doctors and therapists I have visited do not know how to treat cannabis dependence effectively (they just tell me to quit). I suppose I could just quit without pharmacological intervention, but it has been difficult for me in the past to do so and I feel there should be some sort of medicine available for cannabis users to substitute with. After all, I feel that Cannabis has a strong grip on my life and would like to find healthier ways to enjoy it's benefits (without the accompanying side effects ie. carcinogens, anxiety,loss of motivation, etc.). They have treatment for opioid dependency, but it seems that there are no treatment options for users of Cannabis (which surprises me considering the shear number of chronic users seeking treatment).

 

[Changa707]

Some of the comments in the comment section of that Smithsonian article just blow me away... so may people seem to deny that cannabis is addictive, I mean I really hope this guy isn't actually a clinical pharmacologist.

P eter Lutter beck, M.D. • a year ago As a 30 year veteran in clinical pharmacology there has never been a study to show that marijuana is addictive. The attempt to show that under carefully controlled conditions dozens of times have been without success. It is the Elite controlling segment of our societies that wish it were not so, but they continue to report these lies to curb something that many people enjoy...whereas alcohol and smoking are far more addictive but bring in incredible revenues and taxes. As marijuana can be had for next to nothing there is no control to the dismay of the Elites and their complicit main stream media...unfortunately even your publication.

 

[sekio]

Going to URB-style FAAH inhibitors for cannabis withdrawal is kind of like telling someone to go on kratom for opioid dependency, it may indeed get you off of one drug, but you're just substituting with another that has the same damn mechanism.

Even going to baclofen... seems kind of silly to me to be switching from a drug that is relatively benign in withdrawal, to a GABAergic drug that is proven to produce dependency that can cause seizures in W/D. You might as well just replace every joint you smoke with a cold beer.

The best treatment plan for discontinuing cannabis is just to stay busy and suck it up, not by shifting your dependency to a new chemical. As mean as that sounds it's the truth. A lot of cannabis dependency is psychological anyway, if you blaze all the time as an escape and don't deal with whatever is causing you to feel the need to get high, you'll quit weed for maybe a week tops, or start up on another chemical. If you can make it through the initial ~72 hours of your adrenergic system going ballistic, you're golden when it comes to physical effects.

After all, I feel that Cannabis has a strong grip on my life and would like to find healthier ways to enjoy it's benefits

Well, you can either not use cannabis, or continue to use it, you don't get to "enjoy its benefits" by abstaining from it. (unless you're a tax collector)

Doctor Sekio Sez: Maybe you just need to buy a vaporizer and restrict your usage to once a day. Lots of people find that you don't need to cease all consumption of cannabis to achieve a happy medium, you just have to temper yourself with moderation. Having a toke when you get out of work is OK, being stoned all day is less so.

 

[Changa707]

I am prone to also believe that abstinence is usually the best treatment for addiction, although I dread depression and the panic attacks that ensue (or at least I have experienced such things during my last 1 month stint...and although I felt better sober to some extent, my mind was racing and I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride emotionally. I ended up drinking a lot more alcohol, to the point that I would drink myself to sleep...and the night terrors ensued for weeks until I finally gave up and returned to smoking.
Maybe it was a combination of tobacco w/d with cannabis w/d that made the experience a double-whammy if you will...but I just don't want to experience that roller coaster ride again, without a little pharmaceutical/medicinal help. Being that I myself am fascinated with drugs and pharmacology...I often find myself playing doctor searching for answers in drugs. But you are right that moderation of use and self-control can go a long way...and therapy or CBT also.

I have always be cautious about using SSRIs, antidepressants, etc as they have so many negative side effects in my experience. I was prescribed 300 mg Wellbutrin ER a few years back as an off-label for ADHD and tobacco cessation. It really helped with cutting down my smoking, but I experienced quite intense irritability and anger at times which led me to stop taking it...not to mention I would get heart palpitations and couldn't drink alcohol without experiencing nausea and confusion.
My guess is that he put me on to a way too high dose, not knowing how I would react to the drug....it took a few weeks to kick in, but eventually the negative side effects outweighed the positives. If I were to try the drug agains I would start on 150 mg ER daily.
Are there any antidepressants out there that you have experience with Sekio, specifically for dealing with addiction issues and ADHD/OCD like symptoms?

 

[sekio]

Are there any antidepressants out there that you have experience with Sekio, specifically for dealing with addiction issues and ADHD/OCD like symptoms?

Not as such.

I'm probably just as troubled as the next guy (plenty of depressive patches and utter fuckups in my life) but I find responsible use of vices and a lifestyle that forces me out of my man-cave to be the best option. Antidepressants really make poor band-aids for good mental hygiene.

I can't really stress the importance of having a good non-pharmaceutical way to destress as well. Take up drinking tea in the afternoon, start writing about your day, go for a bike ride or a hike. Have dinner with your friends or family. Learn a new skill. Expecting yourself to operate in a vacuum is a good way to ensure you end up looking for easy ways out. Doubly so if you're bored.

Withdrawing from tobacco at the same time as cannabis is way rougher than either alone, by the way. Stick to quitting them one at a time. Most people find that quitting cannabis is much easier than nicotine - when there's cannabis WD effects they rarely persist for more than a few days. Nicotine on the other hand leaves people feeling edgy as fuck for quite a while.

Doctor Sekio Sez: If drugs got you into the pit you're in, why do you think drugs will get you out too?

 

[atara]

Learn to play an instrument.

would you rather be dependent on baclofen or cannabis?

Cannabis by a mile.

This is one of those cases where the reader asks "what does the author want to be true?", and in this case, when you were smoking, you experienced

the accompanying side effects ie. carcinogens, anxiety,loss of motivation, etc

And when you were not smoking, you experienced

or at least I have experienced such things during my last 1 month stint...and although I felt better sober to some extent, my mind was racing and I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride emotionally. I ended up drinking a lot more alcohol, to the point that I would drink myself to sleep...and the night terrors ensued for weeks until I finally gave up and returned to smoking.

In other words, you had anxiety and emotional regulation problems when you were smoking marijuana, and you also had similar problems when you were not smoking. It would be convenient if we could blame the issues on cannabis, but can we, really?

Unfortunately you seem to have a "rose-colored-glasses" view of what is going to happen when you quit smoking, and, while this does not by any measure mean you should keep smoking, you need to drop these expectations if you are ever to be successful in quitting. If you are always preparing yourself to be disappointed with the results of sobriety you will never be able to maintain it; i.e., if "sobriety will make me ____" is the goal you are going to give up as soon as it does not make you _____, which it will not. So it may help to fix the attitude problem.

Beyond that, if you have some combination of "depression / anxiety / ADHD / OCD"-like symptoms, the primary treatment is probably a proper diagnosis, to figure out exactly what your underlying issue really is. Consider meditation, therapy, etc. Try to find a doctor who doesn't put words in your mouth, which, to be fair, could be hard; they're all narcissists. Don't be afraid to shop around.

Regarding motivation, specifically, one of the best things you can do is to change your social environment. If all your friends are lazy, you're gonna be lazy. Find people who work as hard as you wish you did and spend time with them; you'll learn to live like they do.

 

[rakketakke]

Going to URB-style FAAH inhibitors for cannabis withdrawal is kind of like telling someone to go on kratom for opioid dependency, it may indeed get you off of one drug, but you're just substituting with another that has the same damn mechanism.

Even going to baclofen... seems kind of silly to me to be switching from a drug that is relatively benign in withdrawal, to a GABAergic drug that is proven to produce dependency that can cause seizures in W/D. You might as well just replace every joint you smoke with a cold beer.

The best treatment plan for discontinuing cannabis is just to stay busy and suck it up, not by shifting your dependency to a new chemical. As mean as that sounds it's the truth. A lot of cannabis dependency is psychological anyway, if you blaze all the time as an escape and don't deal with whatever is causing you to feel the need to get high, you'll quit weed for maybe a week tops, or start up on another chemical. If you can make it through the initial ~72 hours of your adrenergic system going ballistic, you're golden when it comes to physical effects.



Well, you can either not use cannabis, or continue to use it, you don't get to "enjoy its benefits" by abstaining from it. (unless you're a tax collector)

Doctor Sekio Sez: Maybe you just need to buy a vaporizer and restrict your usage to once a day. Lots of people find that you don't need to cease all consumption of cannabis to achieve a happy medium, you just have to temper yourself with moderation. Having a toke when you get out of work is OK, being stoned all day is less so.

I usually compare a few segments of GHB and Cannabis addictions & withdrawals.

I've went near eight months without cannabis and still thoughts reoccured how I craved for cannabis. There were even times of hardship that I fell back on the thought; "Eventually i'll have it again". If that isn't spoken like a true addict...

But yes, GHB did wake me up at night, bathing in sweat telling my body that it needs it, NOW That was that, a few months pass and the thought (nor the remembered recreational experiences) didn't impact my life anymore. Haven't done it since.

But cannabis?

Try not sleeping for four weeks simply because i'd wake up every two hours, bathing in sweat, accompagnied by intense, lifelike, very personal nightmares which would furfill me with dread for the remainder of the day, i'd feel cold and then warm and whilst i've never incited agression i've lost my temper many times and have thrown things due to sheer blind anger. True oddity! I'd compare it to a traumatic experience since i'd remember some parts from time to time.
All food suddenly tasting bland is a wretched reality for a cook 8(!

&Last but not least: THC metabolites are a demon of their own, storing themselves for months!
I guess I understand dependency differently since I can't attain sleep by myself. We all differ ofcourse

Also:

**Nora Laaris et. al., "Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol is a full agonist at CB1 receptors on GABA neuron axon terminals in the hippocampus." Neuropharmacology, Vol. 59, No. 1-2, 121-127. 2010.[

**A. Hoffman, "Mechanisms of Cannabinoid Inhibition of GABA-A Synaptic Transmission in the Hippocampus." J. Neurosci., 20(7):2470-2479. 2000.

Marijuana causes a physiological reaction that causes anxiety.

Depression of growth hormone and cortisol response to insulin-induced hypoglycemia after prolonged oral delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol administration in man.

Six hospitalized volunteer male subjects were given insulin, 0.15 U/kg, before and after 14 days of administration of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) at a dose of 210 mg/day. A diminished maximal serum human growth hormone (GH) increase followed the prolonged THC ingestion. The mean maximal GH response was: 52.6 ng/ml +/- 8.7 (+/-SE) before THC and 18.8 ng/ml +/- 6.7 (+/-SE) during THC, P less than 0.01; corresponding cortisol responses were 20.1 mug/dl +/- 3.0 before THC and 10.0 mug/dl +/- 1.1 during THC, P less than 0.05. The data suggest suppression of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis after prolonged high dose THC use. This is consistent with other reported endocrine effects of marijuana in man.



Gamma-aminobutyric acid B receptor 1 mediates behavior-impairing actions of alcohol in Drosophila: adult RNA interference and pharmacological evidence.

Department of Psychiatry, Psychiatric Institute, University of Illinois, Chicago, IL 60612, USA.

In addition to their physiological function, metabotropic receptors for neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the GABA(B) receptors, may play a role in the behavioral actions of addictive compounds. Recently, GABA(B) receptors were cloned in fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster), indicating that the advantages of this experimental model could be applied to GABA(B) receptor research. RNA interference (RNAi) is an endogenous process triggered by double-stranded RNA and is being used as a tool for functional gene silencing and functional genomics. Here we show how cell-nonautonomous RNAi can be induced in adult fruit flies to silence a subtype of GABA(B) receptors, GABA(B)R1, and how RNAi combined with pharmacobehavioral techniques (including intraabdominal injections of active compounds and a computer-assisted quantification of behavior) can be used to functionally characterize these receptors. We observed that injection of double-stranded RNA complementary to GABA(B)R1 into adult Drosophila selectively destroys GABA(B)R1 mRNA and attenuates the behavioral actions of the GABA(B) agonist, 3-aminopropyl-(methyl)phosphinic acid. Moreover, both GABA(B)R1 RNAi and the GABA(B) antagonist CGP 54626 reduced the behavior-impairing effects of ethanol, suggesting a putative role for the Drosophila GABA(B) receptors in alcohol's mechanism of action. The Drosophila model we have developed can be used for further in vivo functional characterization of GABA(B) receptor subunits and their involvement in the molecular and systemic actions of addictive substances.

*Ahum* not the most credible study (look at the dosage!) & controlgroup but I could never forget about it.

Sorry for offtopic:
Try Paracetamol... Endocannabinoid reuptake inhibitors

 

[Bagseed]

as I already said in CD: the fact that you mix cannabis with tobacco plays a big role in why you are so addicted to it.

 

[atara]

If you can't sleep, consider melatonin.

THC metabolites are a demon of their own, storing themselves for months!

It's fun to believe, but ridiculously unlikely, that residual THC in "fatty tissue" (or whatever the reservoir du jour is) has psychotropic effects. The amounts which can be stored lead to blood THC concentrations far too low to provoke an effect. See also: LSD mythology.

Try Paracetamol... Endocannabinoid reuptake inhibitors

Due to the risks of paracetamol it is not advisable to take large amounts; certainly do not try to use this as a replacement for cannabis.

 

[rakketakke]

No, I don't believe it gets me high it just irks me my body must invest energy in getting toxins out, months on end.

 

[Bagseed]

are cannabis metabolites found to be toxic? if not, you could hardly classify them as "toxins"...