Antabuse for Pot Use?

[nell]

Spoke with our therapist today about my son's ongoing pot use...he thought that he had read something about an Antabuse type drug for pot use... Anybody heard of this? I am willing to try anything at this point.

[Mike Bradley]

Dear Parent,
The only such medicine that I know of (and there might well be others) is one called Rimonabant which was really developed as an anti-obesity drug. It happens to block the "marijuana receptor sites" in the body, and so was touted by some as being Antabuse (an anti-alcohol drug) for weed. Unfortunately, the FDA advisory panel evaluating this found that it also increased suicidal thinking by a whopping 200%. Therefore in June of 2007 they voted 14-0 against approving this med for any use. This panel only makes recommendations to the FDA but most (perhaps all) practitioners have moved away from this drug due to the risks.
Even if such a drug existed, please know that it would not likely be a "silver bullet" for your kid's problem (as is the case for alcoholics with Antabuse). Addicts must first really, really want to stop using before anything will help much. When they do decide, then there are lots of tools to help.
I'd refocus on the counseling with the goal being to help your son to make that decision to truly fight his addiction. Be sure that the family is brought into that counseling process as well.
Good luck and hang in there. Sobriety is a long and frustrating journey, but one well worth the effort.

[Dan]

Agreed. In my experience in the drug recovery community, nothing compares to treatment and support groups. Like Dr. Bradley said, the first thing that needs to happen is for the user to desire change. Without that, everything is useless. I have seen a good amount of addicts relapse because they went on one of those "wonder drugs" that treat addiction. They thought that they could control their addiction with these things and obviously they did not control it for very long. I've seen some medications help addicts, especially for opiate addiction, but the odds are it wont work alone and it must be paired with some form of treatment or support. If there was a magic pill out there that cured addiction, the world would be a very fanciful place.

[tacobell123]

Cannabis does not have a physical addiction such as other drugs like heroin, cocaine, tobacco or methamphetamine. This means that the 'addiction' is only in the mind, like food or TV or internet.

Giving him MORE drugs to get him to stop smoking pot is ridiculous and will only harm his mind and body moreso.

'It's just pot' may sound condescending, but it really is one of the least harmful substances on the earth.

The FDA is a joke run by lobbyists, don't believe everything they have to say.