Cannabidiol (CBD) is a “phytocannabinoid” part of cannabis, or an element created from the cannabis plant. According to a recent New York Times article, “The CBD industry is flourishing, conservatively projected to hit $16 billion in the United States by 2025. Already, the plant extract is being added to cheeseburgers, toothpicks and breath sprays."¹ The FDA has approved Epidiolex, a CBD oral solution, for prescriptions to patients two years of age and older to treat certain intense forms of epilepsy, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome or Dravet syndrome, marking the first official go-ahead for a marijuana-derived substance.² CBD, in short, makes headlines. Yet some consumers buying a CBD product sold over-the-counter have had difficulty finding a label and knowing what they’re actually getting.³ For other potential consumers, the biggest questions aren’t about a buzzy new wellness trend—they’re about failing a drug test after acquiring impure CBD or THC in a purchase.⁴ 

Consumers try to balance these fears with the purported benefits CBD. It is true that Epidiolex has been life-changing for the seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome. For parents and children coping with these conditions, all other treatments have failed. CBD may have benefits for other patients with rare or difficult-to-treat neurological diseases. In a recent study, researchers at the University of North Carolina wondered if CBD might help treat individuals with another condition involving severe seizures, Angelman syndrome. 

National Addiction Nonprofit Implements eIntervention to Get More Individuals into Treatment Via Digital Referrals and Engagement

Many Americans are aware of the United States’ current overdose and addiction epidemic. For patients, families, friends, and loved ones, the tragic health and behavioral effects of substance use disorders (SUDs) are readily recognizable at a level of intimate, granular detail. Among individuals who have used substances, not all have SUDS, but many have spent money on illicit substances. SUD-related discussions frequently focus on survival or addiction, sometimes looking past another elephant in the room: finance. A recent RAND report for the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) sheds an important light on how much money we pay for illegal drugs by highlighting Americans’ expenditures on methamphetamine, marijuana, heroin, and cocaine.

47,600 people died from drug overdoses involving opioids in 2017. Between 2012 and 2018, the number of fentanyl-induced fatal overdoses rose dramatically, accounting for a majority of overdose deaths. While preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control shows a marginal decline in fatal overdoses in 2018, from 70,237 to 68,557, it also reveals that fentanyl is still the primary cause of fatal overdoses.¹ Naloxone is a non-opioid wonder drug that can reverse an opioid overdose. It is short-acting, and by temporarily reversing the effects of opioids, it gives a person with an opioid use disorder (OUD) a second chance—an opportunity to receive treatment. As a result of campaigns by, among others, the Surgeon General² and the CDC to improve naloxone access, retail pharmacies increased naloxone dispensing from 2012 to 2018. Despite the increase in dispensation by pharmacies, only one naloxone prescription was dispensed for every 69 high-dose opioid prescriptions in 2018.³ In the old days, I remember patients saying that they felt stigmatized at the pharmacy when they heard, "Mr. Jones, your Elavil is ready." Stigma kept many depressed patients from filling prescriptions. But in this case, is the challenge both stigma and the lack of pharmacist or health care provider education?⁴ It is tough to pinpoint a cause explaining this data. 

The CDC and Surgeon General encourage us to improve naloxone access at the local level, including through prescribing and pharmacy dispensing. Widespread distribution of naloxone is an essential component of the public health response to the opioid overdose epidemic. Unfortunately, the lowest rates of naloxone dispensing are in the areas with the highest opioid overdose rates. We are in the third phase of the opioid epidemic, with pain clinics’ overprescribing practices overtaken first by heroin and, more recently, by fentanyl. Individuals who overdose often overdose again, and many patients treated in addiction programs or health providers' offices through MAT often relapse.

For the treatment community, adverse outcomes and continued overdose deaths are, naturally, extremely upsetting. OUD treatment program employees frequently complain of burnout. High turnover in many programs is a major problem. Some are frustrated by recidivism rates, others because some patients are not offered MAT. Some patients cease their MAT course, and others drop out of treatment altogether. Yet experts have consistently agreed that while MAT, due to a lack of options, has not helped us combat cocaine or methamphetamine use disorders, it can be enormously helpful in managing OUD. A recent review, written by James Bell and John Strang, looks at the overall evidence on MAT and compares the relative benefits of different medications, helping to shed light on this critical public health issue. It is important to keep in mind, however, how contentiously and frequently some of our evidence is debated. We lack, for example, prospective, long-term, oncology-like, 5-year studies on the subject. MAT is debated—and so are standards measuring patient "outcomes." For a physician with an OUD, the relevant outcome standards may include a return to practice, 5-year sobriety, urine testing, and fitness for duty. In other cases, outcome standards may include coming to a treatment program, or following an MAT course, or simply not overdosing or dying. 

70% of adults in the U.S. have experienced at least one form of traumatic event in their lives.¹