Is CBD an Effective Treatment for COPD?
The thought behind why CBD is an effective treatment for COPD is that it can open up your bronchial passages, helping you to breathe easier. Studies from over 40 years ago strongly suggested that smoking marijuana dilated the lungs, helping make breathing easier for some people with asthma.
But there is still a lot we don’t know to certify if CBD works to treat COPD. A small 2018 randomized controlled trial of 18 participants with advanced COPD didn’t indicate that using mainly vaporized THC made any meaningful difference in endurance or breathlessness during exercise as a result of airway dilation.
In an even smaller 2011 study, participants were given either cannabidiol and THC oil [1] or a placebo to see if it helped with the symptom of breathlessness. It didn’t appear to. But participants who were given the CBD/THC combination were less likely to feel “air hunger,” or have complaints of not being able to breathe, in follow-up observations.
Trials have also been done on animals. In a 2014 animal study, mice with acute lung injuries experienced reduced inflammation and improved lung function. But this doesn’t tell us much about whether CBD is an effective, long-term treatment for the symptoms of COPD in humans.