WEBVTT - Can Cannabis Help Break Opioid Addiction? 0:00:02.040 --> 0:00:07.160 Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff, 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:11.160 Lauren vogebam here. After five plus years of deep researching 0:00:11.200 --> 0:00:15.720 potential medicinal uses for cannabis, Sanjay Gupta, neurosurgeon, professor at 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:19.200 Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, and most famously 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.360 medical correspondent for cable news giant CNN, has settled firmly 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:27.600 on this conclusion. We'd works, and not for everybody, but 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.800 for a lot of people it can ease pain, reduce inflammation, 0:00:31.120 --> 0:00:33.919 and for many who struggle with opioid addictions, it can 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:37.480 help them kick their habits by tamping down the nausea, insomnia, 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:42.480 and other symptoms that characterize opioid withdrawal. Very possibly, cannabis 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:46.800 may help heal brain damage caused by opioids too. Gupta 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:49.600 has not always believed this. He wrote a piece for 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.800 Time Magazine in two thousand nine outlining his opposition to 0:00:52.840 --> 0:00:56.880 the legalization of pot even for medicinal use. His turnabouts 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.400 since then has made him an unlikely ally of the 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:02.240 pro can this crowd and put him publicly at odds 0:01:02.240 --> 0:01:04.720 with a government that still places cannabis in the same 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:08.600 class of drugs as heroin. And LSD Dr Sanjay Gupta, 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:13.160 CNN star practicing brain surgeon and medical marijuana advocate. Who 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.840 would thunk it? Gupta says, I don't really know that 0:01:16.920 --> 0:01:19.720 I see this as being an advocate. I think for me, 0:01:19.880 --> 0:01:22.360 it was not advocacy journalism as much as it was 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:27.360 evidenced based journalism that hopefully spoke truth to power. Gupta's 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.280 about face on cannabis, or maybe it's better described as 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:34.039 a slow, steady, deeply thought out awakening, is grounded in 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:38.279 years of journalistic research highlighted in the CNN documentary Weed. 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.240 The fourth installment of the series Weed four Pot Versus Pills, 0:01:42.480 --> 0:01:45.280 examined the use of medical cannabis who help solve America's 0:01:45.280 --> 0:01:50.000 addiction to opioids. It's a crisis crying for answers. According 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:52.440 to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, more than a 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.920 hundred and fifteen Americans die every day from opioid overdose, 0:01:56.280 --> 0:02:00.200 usually prescription painkillers, heroin, or synthetic opioids Like to Know. 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.720 One study puts the economic burden of the epidemic at 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:08.120 more than seventy eight billion dollars a year. At least 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:10.880 part of the solution to combating the opioid crisis to 0:02:11.000 --> 0:02:14.960 a growing number of researchers and doctors, including Gupta, is cannabis, 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:20.399 a long stigmatized drug used recreationally and therapeutically. Those researchers 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.000 and doctors are just beginning to unlock what happens when 0:02:23.040 --> 0:02:25.440 pot hits the brain and how that can help break 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.079 an addiction to opioids. Opiates block the transmission of pain 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:31.680 signals to the brain, and they can be very good 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.720 at it. The problem is that the drugs are highly addictive, 0:02:35.120 --> 0:02:37.280 users need more and more to get the same relief, 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:41.280 making them extremely dangerous. They can, Gupta explains, in weed 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.920 four actually turn off the body's natural instinct to breathe, 0:02:45.200 --> 0:02:48.840 leading to tens of thousands of deaths a year. Gupta says, 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:51.720 opiates tend to cause this disruption in an area of 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.240 the brain around these glutamate receptors. I liken it to 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:57.880 having two big cities, New York in Chicago, and you 0:02:57.919 --> 0:02:59.880 need to send these signals back and forth, fire air 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.040 planes to these two cities, and suddenly all the transportation 0:03:03.120 --> 0:03:06.480 is down once hooked on opiates, and that can happen 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:08.720 as quickly as in a couple of weeks addiction is 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.760 very difficult to break, possibly because of the damage the 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:14.040 drugs do in a certain area of the brain, the 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:18.359 prefrontal cortex. Gupta explains that part of the brain is 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:20.920 sort of a judgment area where you start to learn things. 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.400 Some of the wisdom that has come out recently is 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:25.880 that even if you stop taking the opiates, you don't 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.520 necessarily heal that part of the brain. You're still at 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.480 risk of relapsing in some ways. The brain is not 0:03:31.600 --> 0:03:35.800 able to remember the negative impact of the opiates. Cannabis, 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:39.240 like opiates, also blocks pain signals, Gupta says, but it 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.640 also reduces inflammation that can lead to further pain. And 0:03:42.800 --> 0:03:46.160 the real advantage of cannabis for opioid addicts, Gupta says, 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:48.880 and here he points out the groundbreaking research of Dr 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:51.760 Yasmin Heard, the director of the Addiction Institute at Mount 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:54.920 Sinai in New York. Maybe that the cannabidiol or c 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.480 b D compound in the plant can fix the receptors 0:03:58.560 --> 0:04:01.000 damaged in the brain from opioid use and can make 0:04:01.040 --> 0:04:05.080 communication in the brain whole again. Gupta says. The idea 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.440 that cb D can heal the deceased brain of an 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.520 addict was the real takeaway for me. There's nothing else 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.120 that we know of that can really do that in 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:15.480 the way CBD does. One of the more than four 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.800 hundred chemical compounds in the cannabis plant, c b D 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:22.520 is used often for medicinal purposes in children for diseases 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.440 like epilepsy, and is legal even in seventeen of the 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:30.240 most cannabis opposed states. CBD does not contain the psychoactive 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.960 part of the plant, known as th HC that produces 0:04:33.040 --> 0:04:37.040 the high of cannabis use. The pro cannabis crowd points 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:40.240 out that no one has ever overdosed on cannabis or CBD, 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:44.240 making it infinitely more preferable to other addiction breaking therapies 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:47.120 that use opiates like sobox zone or methadone to wean 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:51.479 addicts off stronger opiates like heroin. Still, cannabis use is 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:55.200 not without its dangers, especially for younger people with developing brains. 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:59.200 Gupta says cannabis can be addictive and the psychoactive part 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.680 of the plant can hair a motor function and judgment. 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:06.440 Despite cannabis negatives, the biggest hurdle that we'd advocates face 0:05:06.600 --> 0:05:11.039 is clear the plant remains a federally regulated Schedule one drug. 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:14.880 Though many states have legalized CBD and have approved cannabis 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:18.240 for medicinal uses, and some have even ocated for recreational 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:21.200 or otherwise personal use, it is still illegal on the 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:25.320 federal level. Many in the current presidential administration seem hell 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:28.560 bent on keeping it that way. The nation's top drug 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:32.279 enforcement official, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has spoken out forcefully 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.200 against the legalization of cannabis and seems defiant in his 0:05:35.279 --> 0:05:38.919 opposition to the work of Mount Sinise Herd and others. 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.599 Sessions apparent reluctance to look at the potential good of 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.320 cannabis is not unusual. Many people still see cannabis as 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.479 a gateway too harder drugs, a theory that's been debated 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.400 for years, debunked by some and revived by others through 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:55.240 the work of Herd and many others. Though it's becoming 0:05:55.320 --> 0:05:58.080 much more difficult to blindly accept the old way of 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.880 looking at cannabis, Good to stands as one of the 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:03.680 more public examples of someone who has accepted new evidence, 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:06.279 and he's glad to share his findings with the powerful. 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.040 In April, he wrote an open letter to Sessions after 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:14.960 Sessions repeatedly turned down Gupta's requests for interviews. Research by 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.200 Herd and others, including University of California, San Diego and 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.159 entusiologist Mark Wallace, who has been looking at cannabis as 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:24.440 an alternative pain reliever for more than twenty years, continues, 0:06:24.839 --> 0:06:27.800 even though studying the medicinal uses of cannabis is difficult 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:31.520 because of its status as a Schedule one drug. Gupta says, 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.000 I think it's one of those situations where everybody who 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:37.599 is responsible in this whole discussion wants more data. The 0:06:37.640 --> 0:06:40.159 situation I think we find ourselves in is there isn't 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.279 a real mechanism by which to obtain that data given 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:47.680 the regulations right now around medicinal marijuana. The debate on 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:50.520 how to research cannabis, or even if we should study 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.920 it continues too, though a showdown may be coming. In June, 0:06:55.839 --> 0:06:59.279 the US Food and Drug Administration approved a CBD based drug, 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:02.679 a pity elect for the treatment of epilepsy, that puts 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:05.640 the ft A in a strange position a federal agency 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:08.720 giving the go ahead to a cannabis derived drug even 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:12.880 as it remains illegal on the federal level. Researchers and 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.760 proponents like Gupta, hope that this will push the government 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:20.320 to reschedule cannabis as a less dangerous drug. Rescheduling would 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.560 make research easier and perhaps someday unlock more federally approved 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:27.160 uses for a plant that may yet play a major 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:30.520 part in bettering even saving thousands of American lives from 0:07:30.560 --> 0:07:35.120 opioid addiction. Gupta said, over the next year, my guess 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.920 is We're going to see a significant transformation with regard 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:41.200 to medical marijuana in this country. We're seeing something that 0:07:41.240 --> 0:07:43.920 I've never seen before in my medical life, an entirely 0:07:43.960 --> 0:07:46.360 new class of medications that could be used to treat 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:54.120 a wide variety of things. Today's episode was written by 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.040 John Donovan and produced by Tyler Clang. To hear more 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.320 about the history of cannabis in the United States, including 0:07:59.320 --> 0:08:02.240 why I'm largely calling it cannabis and not marijuana, check 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:04.560 out the episode of my other show food Stuff, called 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.200 the Fully Baked Episode on Cannabis Edibles, featuring an interview 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.120 with Becca Grim of Dope Girls. This is where I'm 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.800 supposed to remind you to contain yourself in brain Stuff 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:16.200 themed t shirts from our online shop at t public 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:20.040 dot com slash Brainstuff and of course, for more on 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.480 this and lots of other fully baked topics, visit our 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:35.960 home planet, how stuff Works dot com.