Can CBD help you quit smoking?

It may sound like an outrageous claim, but a recent study by researchers at the University College of London indicated that CBD acted as a deterrent against smoking.

It all centres around the concept of attentional bias - the tendency for people's perception to be affected by their recurring thoughts at the time.

In smokers, this refers to a subconscious attention to smoking-related cues in the world around them (such as seeing friends with cigarettes) which influences how often they smoke in response. Attentional bias is heightened when people abstain from smoking, and can often trigger them to relapse.

For the study, 30 dependent smokers came into the university lab after, on separate occasions, either smoking as normal or abstaining for 12 hours. They were then given pills of either CBD or a placebo.

In a series of tests, those who were given CBD showed less attention bias to tobacco-related stimuli in comparison to those who were not. They also rated a series of smoking-related images as less pleasant than those who received the placebo.

While cravings and withdrawal symptoms were not affected, researchers say they will follow up with clinical trials using longer-term treatment and multiple doses to see if CBD can help with this in order to maintain abstinence.