The University of California San Diego’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research announced Tuesday that the Drug Enforcement Administration has OK’d its plans to import capsules containing two key cannabis compounds — CBD and THC — from British Columbia-based Tilray to study their effectiveness in treating tremors that afflict millions of people, especially those over 65.
The shaking condition affects 10 million Americans. There is no drug to calm it. Researchers want to know if CBD would help.

There is no drug designed to treat essential tremor, a shaking condition. Unlike Parkinson’s disease, which causes shaking when someone is at rest, people with essential tremors shake when they are moving — making everyday activities like writing, drinking and speaking difficult.

The condition afflicts 10 million people nationally and millions more across the globe, according to the International Essential Tremor Foundation.

Many patients try to control the shaking by repurposing other drugs, such as blood pressure medicine, with limited success.

Cannabis has been approved for medical use on a wide variety of conditions in 31 states, but this is the first time scientists have raised the possibility of its effectiveness for calming essential tremor.

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