It’s widely known that “smoking kills, quitting heals“. But most people keep smoking anyway.
Of course, that’s until they find themselves in trouble with their lung health, needing medical attention, or simply oxygen to breathe.
Smoking cigarettes is one of the top-most reasons for preventable deaths in America. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer, and stroke are some of the long-term impacts of cigarette smoking.
If you’re one of those who have tried to give up this filthy habit, you may have tried numerous ways to quit – gummies and chewing gums to lozenge and patches – realizing only too well how it is not about the nicotine dosing alone.
Even though Nicotine replacements and e-cigarettes may help some, for many others it’s just an oral fixation that turns into dependence. Sometimes, it’s just the smoke billowing out of your mouth that makes you “capable of thinking” – or so you think.
Whether it is a nicotine addiction or an oral fixture – smoking can cause a number of severe medical conditions and even pose a threat to your life.
Can CBD Pre-Rolls Help Fight Tobacco Addiction?
CBD is known to help smokers fight tobacco addiction and even inhibit the triggers that let you fall back into your smoking habit.
Early stages of research show that CBD pre-rolls may be a convenient way to help quit smoking. Made from CBD-rich hemp flowers, CBD pre-rolls may help transition with the help of this familiar habit – smoking.
In a preliminary study, based on a randomized, controlled trial, which was published in the Addictive Behaviors in 2013, smokers were found to cease smoking by 40% after using CBD inhalers for a week. CBD has also been seen to reduce social anxiety and can induce calmness, without making you high. This is why many smokers find it easier to replace smoking cigarettes with CBD pre-rolls to overcome their tobacco addiction.
Cigarette Craving vs. Smoking CBD Pre-Rolls
As with most drugs, nicotine, too, triggers the brain’s reward center, increasing dopamine and endorphin levels, and often gives an apparent sense of relief from stress, anxiety, and even pain. This triggers our mind’s reward-seeking center and reinforces this habit further. Studies also suggest that chemicals in tobacco smoke, like acetaldehyde, tend to enhance nicotine’s effects on the brain.
In the long run, the normal release of neurotransmitters gets altered with smoking, changing the way we manage stress, anxiety, and self-control. And that’s how the craving starts.
However, smoking CBD generally does not cause dependence. It is not like replacing an addiction with another. Besides, the World Health Organization confirms CBD is generally safe and does not cause dependence.
Needless to say, smoking or vaping CBD ensures its faster delivery (even though the effects last only between 20 minutes to an hour) and helps you combat your addiction while getting relief from stress, anxiety, and other withdrawal symptoms associated with smoking cessation. Besides, CBD’s bioavailability also increases if you smoked CBD pre-rolls instead of using other delivery options.
Besides, CBD may also help with withdrawal symptoms of nicotine dependence, such as headache, insomnia, depression, anxiety, nausea, constipation, agitation, and restlessness.
Even though it has been found to be quite effective by many who quit smoking, there are only a few studies that show CBD’s efficacy in helping people fight tobacco addiction.
The Question of Cannabidiol’s Efficiency In Fighting Tobacco Dependence
Emerging evidence of CBD’s efficacy in addressing different kinds of addictions has taken the world by storm. Studies show that CBD may not only de-addict people from nicotine but also help curb withdrawal symptoms and eliminate craving responses to usual sensory cues.
- In a systemic review, published in Substance Abuse in 2015, CBD has been shown to have “therapeutic properties on opioid, cocaine, tobacco, and even cannabis.
- In another study, published in Neuropsychopharmacology in 2018, CBD’s potential to treat rats with drug or alcohol addiction was reviewed. When rats with a history of cocaine or alcohol dependence were treated with topical CBD application every 24 hours for seven days, they showed a significant reduction in anxiety and high impulsivity.
- In a randomized, double-blind study (both the patient and the doctor were unaware of the treatment), published in the 2018 edition of Wiley’s Addiction, the effects of CBD versus placebo were tested on a group of smokers. After overnight abstinence from tobacco smoking, some cigarette smokers were administered with 800 mg CBD, while the others were given a placebo. A single dose of CBD was seen to decrease smokers’ affinity to cigarette cues, but no significant improvement was seen in withdrawal or craving.
However, another controlled human trial, involving 30 “non-treatment seeking, dependent, cigarette smokers”, who “attended two laboratory-based sessions after overnight abstinence” were examined to check for impulsivity and memory during abstinence. This study, which was published in the Scientific Reports, reported no significant improvement in “verbal or spatial working memory, or impulsivity during tobacco abstinence”. This denounces the previous predictions.
This suggests there is still a lot of room for further research before we can justifiably infer that CBD may help fight tobacco addiction.
Nevertheless, a lot of other studies have shown positive results in attempts to use CBD to fight other addictions, such as cocaine, heroin, and alcohol.
Smoking CBD Flowers To Quit Cigarette Smoking: Beneficial or Potentially Risky?
Even though CBD is generally a safe substance that helps people curb addictions. But if you are smoking a CBD joint, you must remember the risks involved.
Going the smoking route to curb your tobacco dependence may be a good idea for all.
- For those with an oral fixation, this is merely a replacement of one habit with another.
- Smoking CBD flowers still means you are employing the combustion method of using a substance. This puts unnecessary stress on your lungs. In case you quit owing to a lung condition, this is a strict no-no for you. The carbon oxides produced during the burning of tobacco or any plant reaches your lungs and causes congestion. That does not change with smoking hemp flowers, as you are still relying on the combustion method to activate the CBD.
In a 2019 study, published in the Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, CBD was found in the lung alveoli of lung disease patients with a history of cigarette smoking and cannabis use. This study shows that smoked CBD did not help. Instead, it may have made his condition worse.
- Smoking CBD flowers can also cause pulmonary diseases, even if you did not have it already. This is not caused by the cannabidiol in the flower, but due to your continued smoking habit.
- Smoking CBD flowers may also cause fatigue, dry mouth, and diarrhea in some cases.
- Apart from pulmonary diseases, smoking is associated with several cardiovascular diseases, such as valve blockades, stroke, heart attacks, tachycardia (higher heart rates), palpitations, and atrial flutter to name a few.
- Another common adverse event observed among people who smoke CBD flowers is tooth decay, which is common among cannabis users and smokers alike.
Parting Thoughts
In the absence of any solid evidence to support the idea that smoking CBD flowers may inhibit tobacco dependence and reduce cigarette consumption, we can only say that smoking CBD pre-rolls “may” be helpful to some in quitting cigarettes.
As a last word of caution, we would like to mention that if you must use CBD flowers to quit smoking, maybe you should think of using an alternative delivery method.
Moreover, before buying CBD flowers, ensure the flowers are organically grown and tested by a third-party laboratory.