Marijuana Could be Used to Treat Cocaine Addiction, According to Federal Research

A joint will fix you right up.

Are you one of those partiers who gets caught in this cycle: You're a little plastered, so you reach for the nearest line of cocaine. Then you're a little too up, so you reach for the nearest joint. And so on. (Coughs -- Lindsay Lohan. Joking). Maybe you're onto something.

New research from the National Institute on Drug Abuse suggests that a component of marijuana could cut cocaine addiction. Seriously.

So when Charlie Sheen said he had slain his demons in record time, maybe he was right.

According to the reasearch, CBD, an active compound in pot, can hit your brain's "CB2 receptors" and train them not to like the yay so much.

(See, there are pot people and cocaine people, kind of like dog and cat people).

NIDA:

CB2 receptors in brain modulate cocaine's rewarding and locomotor-stimulating effects, likely by inhibiting cocaine-enhanced dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. These findings also suggest that brain cannabinoid CB2 receptors may constitute a new and novel target for medication development for the treatment of addictive diseases.

So next time your conscious intervenes during a night out with the girls, just remember that you're working on it, one joint at a time.

And for all you new medical marijuana customers in Los Angeles, the pot shop capital of the nation, you now have a new excuse to get your cap on: Addiction treatment! Tell your doc.

(And we'd like to thank Uncle Sam for coming up with this useful tidbit even though it continues to say pot has no use whatsoever except for fueling DEA bonfires).

[@dennisjromero/djromero@laweekly.com]