Cannabis against heroin?

Abstract

Briefly profiles the work by Y. Ren et al. (2009) showing that the non-psychotropic component of cannabis, cannabidiol (CBD), antagonizes cue-induced drug-seeking behavior after heroin withdrawal and discovered that it acts by normalizing glutamate and cannabinoid receptor expression levels in neurons that are involved in the drug-seeking behavior. Relapse after addictive-drug withdrawal is a big societal problem and is thought to be induced by environmental cues. The authors investigated the effect of CBD on the maintenance, extinction and relapse of heroin seeking in rats. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)