Hypnotic and Antiepileptic Effects of Cannabidiol

Abstract

Clinical trials with cannabidiol (CBD) in healthy volunteers, insomniacs, and epileptic patients conducted in the authors' laboratory from 1972 up to the present are reviewed. Acute doses of cannabidiol ranging from 10 to 600 mg and chronic administration of 10 mg for 20 days or 3 mg/kg/day for 30 days did not induce psychologic or physical symptoms suggestive of psychotropic or toxic effects; however, several volunteers complained of somnolence. Complementary laboratory tests (EKG, blood pressure, and blood and urine analysis) revealed no sign of toxicity. Doses of 40, 80, and 160 mg cannabidiol were compared to placebo and 5 mg nitrazepam in 15 insomniac volunteers. Subjects receiving 160 mg cannabidiol reported having slept significantly more than those receiving placebo; the volunteers also reported significantly less dream recall with the three doses of cannabidiol than with placebo. Fifteen patients suffering from secondary generalized epilepsy refractory to known antiepileptic drugs received either 200 to 300 mg cannabidiol daily or placebo for as long as 4.5 months. Seven out of the eight epileptics receiving cannabidiol had improvement of their disease state, whereas only one placebo patient improved.

Effects of Cannabidiol (CBD) on Regional Cerebral Blood Flow

“…For instance, we also observed sedative effects of CBD, confirming former findings in animals (Pickens, 1981;Monti, 1977;Colasanti et al, 1984;Zuardi et al, 1981aZuardi et al, , 1991 and humans (Carlini et al, 1979;Zuardi et al, 1982Zuardi et al, , 1993b. This effect has been reported to be dose-related (Pickens, 1981) and CBD has also been shown to decrease wakefulness (Monti, 1977) and to cause longer sleep duration in insomniacs (Carlini and Cunha, 1981). Thus, the reduced hypothalamic activity observed after CBD use in our study could equally be related to sedative effects of CBD, as suggested to occur with other sedative compounds (Tung et al, 2001).…”

Cannabidiol: from an inactive cannabinoid to a drug with wide spectrum of action

“…In humans with insomnia, high doses of CBD (160 mg) increased sleep duration compared to placebo. 43 Sedative effect was also observed in healthy volunteers with high CBD dose (600 mg). 44 This effect of CBD may be biphasic, since in low doses (15 mg) the cannabinoid appears to have alerting properties in healthy volunteers, as it increases wakefulness during sleep and counteracts the residual sedative activity of 15 mg THC.…”

Convulsions Associated with the Use of a Synthetic Cannabinoid Product

“…The phytocannabinoids in marijuana include the major psychoactive component, Δ-9-THC [18], and various non-psychoactive cannabinoids including cannabinol, cannibidiol, and Δ-9-tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) [19,20]. Although animal studies have provided conflicting results (proconvulsant and anticonvulsant) on the effect of Δ-9-THC depending on the model used [12], cannabidiol and its derivatives has been found to be consistently anticonvulsant in animal models [12,21,22] and in limited human trials [23,24]. Δ-9-THCV was also recently demonstrated to exert anticonvulsant properties [20].…”