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Cannabis Could Help Wipe Out Cocaine Addiction in Canada

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Cocaine AddictionCannabis could enable cocaine users to wean off of the drug with a higher rate of success, according to a Canadian research team. This and other studies indicate that cannabis reduces cocaine-related cravings. The purpose of the study is to combat Vancouver’s and other city’s current cocaine problems.

Cocaine hydrochloride has been around for over a century, but it wasn’t until the early ’80s when it crippled America. By 1985, 5.8 million Americans admitted to being addicted to the substance. But the epidemic isn’t over. In British Columbia, Canada, almost 1,000 people overdosed on crack in 2016, causing a public emergency.

The Vancouver-based BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) released a study that indicates that cannabis could allow addicts to consume less amounts of the drug. The research team surveyed the histories of 122 cocaine users that were rounded up in Vancouver’s Eastside and Downtown South areas. The typically rigid daily use of crack dropped from 35 percent to 20 percent when users consumed cannabis intentionally to cut down on crack.

“Crack cocaine, whether it’s injected or inhaled, is associated with an array of negative health consequences, including cuts and burns from unsafe pipes and the transmission of infectious diseases such as HIV and hepatitis C,” Dr. Eugenia Socias, first author of the study, stated in a press release. “We found that intentional cannabis use preceded declines in crack use among crack cocaine users who pursued self-medication with cannabis.”

The research was presented on May 16 at the 2017 Harm Reduction International (HRI) Conference in Montreal. This study was partially funded from the United States National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). We’re already aware of the anti-addiction properties of cannabis among painkiller addicts, so it’s no surprise that cannabis can help crack addicts as well.

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