Trying to quit smoking is hard enough, let alone the food cravings that result from it. People who try to quit smoking usually put on a lot of weight as their focus shifts from smoking to food. Would you like to try a pill to drop the pounds? What if the same pill helps you to stop smoking? Does it sound too good to be true? Acomplia, also known as rimonabant is a promising drug that helps to shed the extra pounds and also to stop smoking. It has already picked up the nick name ‘munchies drug’. That’s because rimonabant acts like marijuana in reverse. It cuts down your appetite and at the same time curbs the cravings for nicotine. It is not misleading to call it anti-marijuana. The medical name for marijuana is Cannabis. And scientists have discovered that the human body makes marijuana like molecules called Cannabinoids. These molecules regulate the storage of energy in the body. The drug works by blocking the cannabinoid receptors in the brain and deters the cravings for nicotine. It blocks fatty acid synthesis in the liver and helps in reducing your weight. In a study, a 20 mg dose once a day helped patients lose from 5% to 10% of their body weight in a year and also improved blood pressure and blood sugar levels. In another study known as the Stratus US study, 787 smokers were randomized to receive rimonabant doses of either 5mg or 20mg per day. The patients received the drugs for ten weeks. 36% of the patients did not smoke in the last four weeks of the study period, 20% of them successfully quit smoking and 84% of them lost a substantial amount of weight. But the drug does have some side effects, the most common ones being nausea, anxiety, diarrhoea and depression. The industry analysts predict that this Acomplia could be the world’s first blockbuster anti obesity treatment drug. The yet to be approved drug is a source of great speculation for the financial community because of its unique clinical profile. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about this drug and further studies are required before it is released. If it turns out to be as effective and safe as the early studies suggest, its uptake once released has the potential to be explosive. The drug is not expected to be released for a couple of years. For at least the short term future, we are left to resort to the old fashioned methods of weight loss and smoking cessation.