Can CBD Help You Quit Tobacco?

We all know tobacco use is bad. But quitting isn’t easy, despite all the supposed stoppage aids on the market.

Long-time tobacco users are bombarded constantly with cues for smoking, from drinking certain drinks (like coffee) to going through stress to being at a party. These can put nicotine cravings into overdrive.

Addiction to a certain substance like nicotine begins with the normal release of dopamine and serotonin in the brain as a response to the substance because it causes pleasure. 

The release of these feel-good chemicals creates a “pleasure-reward” pathway that is activated every time the substance is used.

Eventually, as the user takes the substance over and over, the brain stops producing dopamine and serotonin except when the substance is taken. 

But that’s not all. All of this adds a 3rd critical element to the pleasure-reward pathway: memory. 

So people who feel the need to smoke whenever they drink coffee have become unconsciously wired to associate the pleasure and reward (smoking) with a positive experience (drinking coffee).

In other words, they remember the when, where, why, what, or how related to the pleasure.

And it’s true of any number of positive things or experiences:

• A favorite song

• Being around other tobacco users

• Eating pizza (or some other food)

• Being at a party

The connection between tobacco use and positive memories is strong. So strong that you pay much more attention and respond more strongly to them than to other stimuli.

According to studies, CBD affects the brain’s pleasure-reward-memory pathways by appearing to reduce responses to those triggering cues. 

It also seems to rewire the pathways for pleasure, reward, and memory by triggering responses in the body’s endocannabinoid system (ECS). 

Because CBD adapts to whatever the body needs to restore its desired balance (homeostasis), it can regulate any imbalance in brain chemistry - which can contribute to addiction as well as to anxiety and depression. It also means it can restore the body’s normal production of dopamine and serotonin.

But there’s more. CBD has been found to increase the production of anandamide, a natural cannabinoid that produces happy or positive feelings and supports the dopamine-serotonin pathways.

Well, research has discovered that it doesn’t directly affect the symptoms of withdrawal. In fact, it doesn’t even completely stop cigarette cravings.

Instead, it influences the responses to smoking cues.

Put another way, CBD reduces the intensity of any links between tobacco use and the pleasurable effects it triggers. So while a smoker still may feel cigarette cravings and go through withdrawal symptoms when not smoking, they don’t respond as strongly to the stimuli that causes them to smoke.

And you know what that means? Less smoking.

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