Baltimore, MD: Daily administration of the oral cannabinoid receptor antagonist Rimonabant (also known as Acomplia) significantly decreases subjective effects of smoked cannabis, according to clinical trial data to be published in the journal Psychopharmacology.
Investigators with the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) reported that the administration of 40-mg oral doses of Rimonabant once daily for eight days reduced subjective measures of intoxication after cannabis inhalation, as measured by subjects’ responses to the questions: “How high do you feel right now?” and “How stoned on marijuana are you now?”
By contrast, daily administration of the drug for 15 days was not associated with an attenuation of cannabis’ subjective effects, researchers found.
Nevertheless, authors speculated that the drug may have “therapeutic potential for a wide range of addictions, including cannabis dependence … via modulation of the endocannabinoid system.”
Rimonabant blocks the binding of endogenous and exogenous cannabinoids to the neuronal CB1 receptors. The pill, marketed in Europe by pharmaceutical manufacturer Sanofi-Aventis as a prescription dietary aid, was recently determined by an independent US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel to be unsafe for human consumption.
Panelists for the FDA reported that patients prescribed 20-mg daily doses of Rimonabant in clinical trials experienced increased incidences of depression, nausea, vomiting, and suicidal tendencies. Adverse neurological symptoms, including multiple sclerosis, have also been documented in subjects administered the drug.
For more information, please contact Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at: paul@norml.org. Full text of the study, “Single and multiple doses of rimonabant antagonize acute effects of smoked cannabis in male volunteers,” will appear in the journal Psychopharmacology.