Cannabidiol Reduces Nicotine Withdrawal Severity and State Anxiety During an Acute E-cigarette Abstinence Period: A Novel, Open-Label Study.

Despite efforts to curb nicotine use, 8.1 million adults in the United States use e-cigarettes. Notably, the majority of nicotine-containing e-cigarette users report wanting to quit in the near future, yet there is a dearth of research surrounding intervention efforts. Cannabidiol (CBD) has potential to facilitate e-cigarette quit attempts by decreasing withdrawal symptom intensity and anxiety during nicotine e-cigarette abstinence. This study employed an open-label, crossover design (=20) to test the hypothesis that among daily nicotine-containing e-cigarette users, oral administration of 320 mg CBD would reduce self-reported nicotine withdrawal severity and state anxiety following a 4-h e-cigarette abstinence period compared to withdrawal and anxiety reported after abstinence in the absence of CBD. After controlling for participants' positive CBD expectancies, results were consistent with hypotheses, suggesting CBD reduced both nicotine withdrawal symptom severity and state anxiety during e-cigarette abstinence. These preliminary findings suggest testing the impact of CBD on e-cigarette cessation attempts is warranted.