Learn About Spice Withdrawal Symptoms When Trying to Quit Cannabis

Combination of synthetic drugs originally designed to mimic the effects of cannabis – ‘Spice’ has more harmful and severe withdrawal symptoms than cannabis when users attempt to quit it as per a study at the University of Bath, as published in the journal Psychopharmacology.

Spice is a colloquial name that is given to a class of drugs known as ‘synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists’ (SCRAs). This drug is synthetically produced onto an herbal material that resembles cannabis and can be smoked.

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‘Combination of synthetic drugs originally designed to mimic the effects of cannabis – ‘Spice’ has more harmful and severe withdrawal symptoms than cannabis when users attempt to quit it.’

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The drug is used as a substitute for cannabis to avoid detection on drugs tests and ease of accessibility. As spice is more potent than cannabis, it is also more addictive thereby having increased severity of withdrawal symptoms.

Spice Withdrawal Symptoms

The study team evaluated the effects of both spice and cannabis across different measures in 284 people who participated in the Global Drug Survey. This was done to further assess the long-term harmful effects and tolerance levels of the drug.

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It was found that around two-thirds (67%) of the participants who tried to give up Spice had experienced at least three withdrawal symptoms after quitting. This involved sleep issues, irritability, low mood, heart palpitations, and craving (a strong desire to use more of the drug).

The study thereby showed that spice had more harmful effects than cannabis, thereby being harder to quit. However, the effects had a shorter duration than cannabis.

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“These findings identify severe withdrawal symptoms as a key clinical problem among people using Spice, and highlight the urgent need to develop effective treatments to help people quit,” says Dr. Tom Freeman, senior author and Director of the Addiction and Mental Health Group at the University of Bath.

Source-Medindia

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