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Does cannabis use substitute for opioids? A preliminary exploratory survey in opioid maintenance patients

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Abstract

Various studies showed that people with substance use disorder use cannabis to reduce withdrawal or dose of their main drug. Using a questionnaire about their cannabis use, 118 participants in an opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) in Germany were examined regarding this strategy. 60% reported to use cannabis. Of those, 72% were using cannabis in the suggested way. Cannabis was used to substitute for, e.g., heroin (44.8%) and benzodiazepines (16.4%). We also asked for an estimation of how good cannabis was able to substitute for several substances (in German school grades (1 till 6)); heroin average grade: 2.6 ± 1.49. Besides that we asked about the idea of cannabis as “self-medication”, e.g., to reduce pain (47%) and about negative consequences from cannabis use. Our results suggest to consider the use of cannabis by patients in OMT rather as a harm reduction strategy to reduce the intake of more dangerous drugs.

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Author notes

  1. Nina Kim Bekier, Ulrich Frischknecht and Derik Hermann have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Addictive Behavior and Addiction Medicine, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Central Institute of Mental Health, University of Heidelberg, Square J5, 68159, Mannheim, Germany

    Nina Kim Bekier, Ulrich Frischknecht, Katharina Eidenmueller, Franz Grimm, Patrick Bach, Manuel Stenger, Falk Kiefer & Derik Hermann

  2. Therapieverbund Ludwigsmuehle, Landau in der Pfalz, Germany

    Derik Hermann

  3. German Institute of Addiction and Prevention Research, Catholic University of Applied Sciences NRW, Cologne, Germany

    Ulrich Frischknecht

  4. Clinique for Addiction Medicine Buergerhospital Frankfurt am Main, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Nina Kim Bekier

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Correspondence to Nina Kim Bekier.

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Conflict of interest

Nina Kim Bekier, Ulrich Frischknecht, Katharina Eidenmueller, Franz Grimm, Manuel Stenger, Patrick Bach, and Falk Kiefer declare that she/ he has no conflict of interest. Author Derik Hermann has received speaker/interview honorarium from the Drug Companies Indivior and Camurus.

Informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000 (5). Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

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Bekier, N.K., Frischknecht, U., Eidenmueller, K. et al. Does cannabis use substitute for opioids? A preliminary exploratory survey in opioid maintenance patients. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00406-023-01718-3

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