Can Marijuana Help You Kick a Drug Habit?
It is conventional wisdom that any substance use during drug treatment leads to lower rates of success. But a new study in the American Journal on Addictions suggests that’s not always so.
The study looked at patients in treatment for opiate dependence using a drug called naltrexone – a treatment whose effectiveness, the researchers write, “has been severely limited by poor adherence.” As part of a study designed to test two different support protocols intended to help patients stay on naltrexone treatment, researchers also looked at use of other substances by means of regular urine tests conducted during clinic visits.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, patients with “intermittent” marijuana use (defined as between 1% and 79% of urine tests coming back positive) stayed on treatment for nearly four times as long as those who abstained completely. Treatment adherence by “consistent” marijuana users (80% or more positive urine tests) was almost identical to that of the abstainers.
The researchers note that the beneficial effect was most apparent early in treatment, that marijuana use was not only associated with staying in treatment longer but also with more consistent pill-taking, and that during the study the patients tended to maintain or even increase their marijuana use. This, they write, is “consistent with a process of self-medication. These findings are of interest because they suggest the hypothesis that moderate cannabis use may be exerting a beneficial pharmacological effect improving the tolerability of naltrexone in the early weeks after induction.”
32 comments
So much for the idea of marijuana use coinciding with use of hard drugs.
Yes it can. I have been addicted to alcohol +Pharma Meds +Prozac for 7yrs. effexer 3yrs, now cymalta 1month. Started smoking pot 6mths ago. After looking into med pot.iam doing well. Before med-pot i would drink 60-70 bottles a beer a week and 60 , bls over fat., & high blood surger.Now no meds down to 24beers aweek. lost 10 bls. iam started walking every day. Iam happy and getting better. Next goal ..6-12 beers a week..Then may be no beer? It is all up to me.
Yes it can. Please make it legal. Please deschedule it.
Quiting marijuana by going cold turkey for a week or two is fun. I’m not kidding. When marijuana is almost cleaned out of your system, and then later light up joint, the high has become so much better. If marijuana was plentiful, people would have just as much fun not smoking it. Because it is illegal, the demand for will always increase.
Please remember that addiction is not set to the substance itself and if you kick one habit, the addiction will try to find something else. For someone who has an addictive personality, I understand this well. No, you cannot kick a drug habit with marijuana. You can only replace the drug of habit.
…..I do support legalization…. But this is no leg to stand on.
Ooops…I didn’t follow this topic well. I’ve reread the article. Marijuana would help on a lot of things. That is why it’s popular.
Addictive personality is an interesting subject. I might do some checking on that. There are people who are addicted to hate.
yep
Addition to substances is often linked to earlier trauma events in the lives of addicts. Often drugs, beer & whiskey are NOT the problem, it’s a matter of what a lot of people call the big show down with one’s demons. Those past events in our lives that make us think, act and make choices in our everyday life. Simply put, to change patients must revisit their lives in reverse order till they come to those periods of time when something happened to make them continually depressed, fearful or whatever the case may be. That’s not so easy to do after many years of trying block out and forget negative events. After the patient has identified the trouble times, then and only then are they able to make changes in their lives for the better.
Marijuana, cannabis, hemp, whatever you prefer to call it, has a wonderful ability to lighten up the mental stress and enables patients to slow down and evaluate their lives minus the low feelings associated with previous periods of trauma or negative events.
Even with all this help, a patient has to want to change and work hard to break old mental tapes that are reruns in the head that is a never ending cycle of repeat of words and actions called the belief system in us as a result of our past experiences. This is the primary reason why we’re all unique and everyone can learn from each other. Hence, a group of addicts in recovery is much more successful and supportive.
Drugs, liquor, etc., are just a bandaid in most cases that helps us temporarily or throughout our lives if intervention is not persued.
Look at this and let us get this in the ranks to help our cause .
http://opengov.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/6841-4049
Props to Terry Shaw! That’s how the great Willy Nelson quit drinking. He’d be dead by now if it wasn’t for cannabis.
I personally know of two alcoholics who with the help of marijuana were able to overcome their alcoholism. Neither of these individuals can ever drink again. One is my brother. He was dry for 5 years and had one drink. One drink and he lost another 10 years of his life to alcohol. He didn’t go through AA, or take anabuse, but smoked as much marijuana as he wanted as long as he didn’t drink. It took a few months, but now my brother has been alcohol free for 15 years. My other friend’s mother bought him marijuana after he got out of prison, and he had the same results. A few months smoking as much as he wanted and now he no longer drinks. He’s been a precher for the last 20 years.
Regarding the the myth that marijuana is a gateway drug, I can tell you from personal experience that this is not so. My brother and I would smoke together on a regular basis, and then one day his job required him to donate a golden sample, which unsruprisingly was positive for marijuana metabolites. He was fortunate and was offered a “last chance” agreement by his employer. He has not smoked marijuana for over three years.
Pretty much the same thing happened to me. I’ve been able to dodge the tests until one day my company performed a blanket test where everyone at the facility was tested. I tested positive and was likewise given a “last chance” agreement and have to be available for testing upon demand by my employer and must test drug free for two years. I’m almost finished with the two years now.
My brother and I were regular smokers and both of us quit smoking marijuana to keep our jobs. And my brother had no inclination to revert to alcohol.
Yes, free the weed. Legalize now!
Just to show marijuana is not a gateway drug: A friend of mine used to buy weed from guy, well one day he was out, but he said he knew where to get some cocaine from. My friend had never tried or, or ever even considered doing it, but when the offer was made, he obliged. Also, I’ve known people that refused to smoke marijuana due to the length of time it remains testable in your urine, along with the odor it gives off which makes it somewhat easy to detect if someone has used it recently. Instead, they got addicted to Xanax; easier to conceal, easy to take whenever, no obvious outward effects of usage. It is the blackmarket and illegal nature of marijuana which moves people onto different drugs, not marijuana itself.
I was addicted to heoin in 1973. I used marijuana to get off it. Took 3 months. Then turned self in to military detox. That was a breeze since I had already broke the cycle prior. When I quit alchol in 83 pot did the trick and aa helped seal the deal. Cigaretts in 2000, same deal the pot did the trick. As a chronic pain and ptsd sufferer i have to smoke anyway.
Got hooked on heroin when the military cops busted all the pot dealers. Didn’t want to drink cause I knew I was an alcoholic. Saw some guys in the barracks snortin next thing I knew I was a full blown junkie. Pot helped me recover. I bet if it was part of a comprehensive rehab program it would be the most successful ever.
People with certain diseases take some meds for their entire lives. That’s what I have to do if I want to live with any quality of life.
Here’s an example: I have taken 5mg methodone 3 x a day for 10 years and have never needed a increase in dosage due to tolerance. Most times I only need 1 before bed thanks to the pot. Without pot I would have needed ever increasing amounts of the methodone untill my doctor out of fear of losing his liscence would cut off my meds and dump me out of the VA system addicted at the door of the black market . Thats what happened to my wife’s, sister in law’s sister, Nancy. Her doc put her on opoids for a condition she had, As she got worse and needed more pain meds he kept increasing her dose. She couldn’t use marijuana due to the doc’s pee test crap. Finally he cut her off and out of his clinic. Needles to say , her life ended in a heroin overdose, alone and abanboned.
Every life lost to the war on drugs lays right at feet of President Richard Nixon and every politician who has made a career on the misery this misguided policy has created!
Thanks MPP for bringing this up. I have personally seen several people kick their meth habit with little to no difficulty using nothing more than pot. No treatment, no 12 step program, just pot. My brother used pot to quit meth (which he had used intravenously for years), then cigarettes, then after a few months he even quit pot. Now he’s squeaky clean and just finished college with a 3.9 GPA.
Do you really want more alcoholics in this country than potheads? Seriously, are alcoholics REALLY worse than potheads? Scavage the depths of our mind, re-evaluate that again, and again and then tell me with a straight face that potheads are a bigger threat to society than alcoholics. Our society is so far off track it isn’t even funny anymore.
Weaned myself off of nicotine using what I call the “cool turkey” method. It worked so well I’m thinking of starting a weed based stop smoking camp.
Yes, I know it’s still smoking but at least there are benefits to the consumer and not just the tobacco “dealers”.
The real criminals are the ones that get you addicted for no other reason than to have another addict paying for their corporate jet.
Ya gotta love how with all the scientific research being conducted around the world, the last thing these geniuses look to is a natural plant. What a backwards world we live in.
I used Cannabis to get off prescriptions and alcohol….they were killing me…..cannabis gives me a better quality of life….
As an Army Veteran, I find that Cannabis Calms the Monster that lurks within me. Calming Homicidal Rage is a good thing. When Marijuana is Legalized will the Police and the Military be required to smoke a Joint every Monday. I think that would be a good start, for them and for us!!!
I am currently performing this study right now. I have been addicted to opiates for 5 years now (the worst was the last 2 years) and on May 12, 2009 I quit cold turkey. Previous drug rehabs and medications did not work for me and I always went back to the opiates. this time my husband convinced me to try to quit with marijuana (i occasionally smoke for fun) and it has really worked! the w/d are not as bad and it takes your mind off of the depression that is associated with the detox. Just thought I would explain how I have been clean and how it has helped me. Maybe it will help someone else that is in a terrible cycle of painkiller addiction. Best of luck.
You want a cause to get behind? Let’s hope this kid can be a catalyst. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/the-cannabis-closet-not-chickening-out.html
I was heavily addicted to opiates for 5 years. I was doing close to 5 oxycontin 80’s a day.
The only way I was able to get clean was because of pot. I’ve been clean now for 4 1/2 years.
The drug counselor at our local drug court advises people starting out in the program not to try to quit smoking cigarettes at first because it would just be too much, too stressful when they are struggling to get off of the meth, cocaine, Oxycontin, whatever. Of course if people in the program test positive for marijuana they are in big trouble. The judge likes to talk about how terribly addictive marijuana is because he sees so many testing positive for it. I think what is happening is that a lot of people are leaving the hard stuff alone but sticking with the marijuana at least for a while so they can gradually get off of everything. They don’t quit the pot for the same reasons the drug counselor doesn’t want them to try to quit smoking cigarettes at first. So many test positive for pot because a lot of them are weaning themselves from the hard stuff with marijuana, and because marijuana metabolites stay in their systems so much longer than other drugs.
You see the same thing in AA and NA programs. A lot of people will smoke pot when they first get into these programs while they are struggling to get off the alcohol or other hard stuff. Most will end up leaving the pot alone too eventually if they stay in the program. But at first they’ll use it as a way to transition into sober living and away from the terribly destructive substance abuse they have been engaging in. For most of these people in drug courts and/or in AA or NA programs smoking a little pot is nothing compared to what they have been doing.
Neal said:
“No, you cannot kick a drug habit with marijuana. You can only replace the drug of habit.”
You are making a good point Neal, but drug replacement treatment is sometimes used to get someone off of more destructive drugs. For instance, heroin addicts are in many cases given methadone. One opiate is replaced by another that is perhaps not quite as addictive and not quite as satisfying for the heroin addict. The idea is to wean him from the heroin and then get him off the methadone, perhaps by giving him an even less addictive opiate or similar drug until finally he isn’t on any drugs.
Note from the article that those who were benefitting from marijuana use were not heavy constant smokers. They were people who often tested clean, even for marijuana. My guess is that what is going on is that the people who were helped by marijuana were just using it when their cravings for opiates seemed to be unbearable. Marijuana metabolites stay in your system for a long time, especially if you are a heavy smoker. These would have been fairly occasional smokers who were having better luck staying off of opiates.
People addicted to opiates are going to take these drugs everyday if they can, several times a day if possible, because like with the addiction to nicotine you have to have the stuff several times a day or you really start to feel uncomfortable. So they are weaning themselves from a destructive habit of constant opiate use, by occasional marijuana use, and we all know occasional marijuana use is not particularly destructive. And it’s not a particularly addictive drug.
I think it’s pretty common for people who do quit drugs like alcohol, cocaine, meth, heroin or other opiates to smoke marijuana when they first quit the hard stuff. Most who stick with it will end up quitting marijuana too, and if they don’t, well, as long as they aren’t doing the other stuff they are going to be less of a problem for the rest of us.
I think you are right though that ideally when someone has problems with substance abuse it would be best if he could leave it all alone and not just replace one drug with another. But if marijuana helps someone get off of something much more destructive, that’s a good thing. If you have problems with one or more drugs you are probably more likely to be one who won’t handle marijuana use very well. You’re probably more likely to be the type of person who uses it constantly, who over-does it. That’s preferable though to being a hardcore alcoholic or crack addict, or a heroin junkie. Hopefully people like that who use marijuana to wean themselves from the hard stuff will eventually quit marijuana too. If not, oh well, potheads are far less of a threat to the rest of us than crack addicts or alcoholics or heroin junkies. And if they are able to be just moderate users of marijuana it really doesn’t matter if they quit pot or not. Who really cares if someone replaces his harcore heroin addiction with moderate marijuana use, or falls back from being a junkie or crack addict who also smokes pot to someone who just uses marijuana in moderation?
Cannabis helped me get off cigarettes and anti-depressants years ago which is one reason I am in this fight. I stopped smoking cannabis some time after. I didnt have the withdraw you have from cigs or pharms aside from the annoying mental thought of the relaxation it gives. I have also known those that smoked cannabis to help them off meth(Such a terrible drug meth). I say so what if your replacing an addiction with cannabis. At least you can give up cannabis soo much easier than hard drugs or pharms.
If judges and other professionals are basing cannabis addiction to positive tests,then thier basis is flawed. Just because one has it in thier system does not mean they are addicted. I mean really. I could smoke cannabis for a year and not be addicted. Why ? because if I choose to do so, I could stop smoking at ANY time. I say this and have in the past done this and I have an addictive type personnality. This is why I dont use alcohol cigarettes or any other drug. I on the other hand wouldnt be afraid to start using cannabis again because I know I can stop without any problems.
Would I suggest to someone to start smoking cannabis to quit something else if they have never smoked it before ?No. Its not for everyone.
Personally, cannabis helped me quit smoking cigarettes. I’ve been tobacco-free for several years now.
I am another who was able to kick an addiction to a harder drug by switching to marijuana. I was 19…I began smoking marijuana in the evening to help reduce desire for the other drug. I did not smoke marijuana prior to that occasion. And I also agree that quitting marijuana is a tremendous experience in itself. You can feel the neurons in your brain going wild. Attention is extremely high, intellect is super keen and desire to be involved in social realm is hightened. Now, I only smoke a few times a year, to ground myself…as a psychological medicine…it helps me to objectively evaluate myself and the world…and I am able to fine-tune my goals and habits to better create possitive practices and experiences. When I don’t smoke habitually (daily), I don’t have the inclination to seperate myself from social experiences because I don’t have the fear of being a “drug addict”; of being labelled by others. I know that what I am doing is not bad. I only hope that others will be able to properly assess the reality of their situations some day, instead of placing themselves under the labels and categories that our “drug war” has created. ….this is not a calculated blurb…just a little 2 cents.
“These findings are of interest because they suggest the hypothesis that moderate cannabis use may be exerting a beneficial pharmacological effect improving the tolerability of naltrexone in the early weeks after induction.”
People ask, “How does Medical Marijuana help you?”; I answer by saying that, “Marijuana alleviates the agitation associated with chronic pain; furthermore, cannabis has proven to consistently reduce my blood pressure by 10 points , ex. 135/80 to 125/83. It is my experience that heart rate does increase slightly but, blood pressure lowers. Finally, Medical marijuana has proven to help me tolerate new medications that are introduced to my pain management program, effective against, i.e. nausea, headaches, etc. .
I spent 5 years on narcotics while going through the current medical systems step treatment approach to my medical needs.
Being that this is my first year without surgery; I have been able to get a real pain management specialist. With my doctors help we have successfully transitioned out of the narcotics and onto a 3 point non-addictive drug approach to pain management which includes drugs such as naltrexone and medical marijuana.
Because of my many orthopedic injuries, and a traumatic head injury I am caught in between a rock and a hard place.
Any drug or combination of drugs hinders cognitive ability, but just as significant is the problem associated with chronic pain.
All I am saying is don’t take away my options.
One may argue that our current medical system has been directly /indirectly responsible for the increase of opiate addiction in our nation. the one number I never hear the DEA present is the number of people addicted to opiates given to them by their primary care givers.
im down
Yea Mman Let it be, Likee these dudes need to burn one before performance one night .
Or smoke some Draino maybe some ly and bleach. Na We need to fight for our Right to Relax and ggiggle a little. On other issues I didnt use jane to kick any hard stuff mostly went to Detox and get some Vicotus,Valum,librium,Thoraazine for my evening cocktail. And I was still beatin meant 5 hrs; later. Roll A fatty for all of us. Tommorow Night SMOKE ME
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