Skip to main content

Acute Effects of a Single, Oral dose of d9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD) Administration in Healthy Volunteers

Notice

The full text article is available externally.

View from original source.

Rationale: Animal and humans studies suggest that the two main constituents of cannabis sativa, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) have quite different acute effects. However, to date the two compounds have largely been studied separately.

Objective: To evaluate and compare the acute pharmacological effects of both THC and CBD in the same human volunteers.

Methods: A randomised, double-blind, cross-over, placebo controlled trial was conducted in 16 healthy male subjects. Oral THC 10 mg or CBD 600 mg or placebo was administered in three consecutive sessions, at one-month interval. Physiological measures and symptom ratings were assessed before, and at 1, 2 and 3 hours post drug administration. The area under the curve (AUC) between baseline and 3 hours, and the maximum absolute change from baseline at 2 hours were analysed by one-way repeated measures analysis of variance, with drug condition (THC or CBD or placebo) as the factor.

Results: Relative to both placebo and CBD, administration of THC was associated with anxiety, dysphoria, positive psychotic symptoms, physical and mental sedation, subjective intoxication (AUC and effect at 2 hours: p<0.01), an increase in heart rate (p<0.05). There were no differences between CBD and placebo on any symptomatic, physiological variable.

Conclusions: In healthy volunteers, THC has marked acute behavioural and physiological effects, whereas CBD has proven to be safe and well tolerated.

Keywords: Cannabis; cannabidiol; humans; induced anxiety; induced psychosis; pharmacological acute effects; placebo controlled trial; review; unique dose; Δ-9-THC-tetrahydrocannabinol

Document Type: Research Article

Publication date: November 1, 2012

More about this publication?
  • Current Pharmaceutical Design publishes timely in-depth reviews covering all aspects of current research in rational drug design. Each issue is devoted to a single major therapeutic area. A Guest Editor who is an acknowledged authority in a therapeutic field has solicits for each issue comprehensive and timely reviews from leading researchers in the pharmaceutical industry and academia.

    Each thematic issue of Current Pharmaceutical Design covers all subject areas of major importance to modern drug design, including: medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, drug targets and disease mechanism.
  • Editorial Board
  • Information for Authors
  • Subscribe to this Title
  • Call for Papers
  • Ingenta Connect is not responsible for the content or availability of external websites
  • Access Key
  • Free content
  • Partial Free content
  • New content
  • Open access content
  • Partial Open access content
  • Subscribed content
  • Partial Subscribed content
  • Free trial content