Experts believe cannabis may help patients with PTSD manage their sleep problems.

As a substance abuse specialist at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System, Marcel Bonn-Miller, Ph.D has spent years studying cannabis use among patients in California.

In his work, he’s noticed that a significant portion of patients who visit marijuana dispensaries suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). And these patients seem to find marijuana useful for a variety of symptoms.

“But there hasn’t been a whole lot of documentation of it,” he told us. “This was one of the first studies to really document that people with PTSD appear to be using (cannabis) to cope, and it seems like they are primarily using to cope with sleep problems.”

In a study published last month in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Dr. Bonn-Miller and his colleagues administered surveys to PTSD patients from a local dispensary to find out what exactly they were using cannabis for. Sleep, it seemed, was the primary reason.

Dr. Bonn-Miller explains that sleep problems are a big component of PTSD. Patients might have problems falling asleep or have trouble staying asleep throughout the night. Nightmares are also common.

His latest findings support sleep as the primary motivation of PTSD patients who self-medicate with cannabis. An important point is that patients with worse sleep tend to use cannabis more frequently.

But Dr. Bonn-Miller says while cannabis seems to help in the short-term, other studies suggest that it’s effectiveness may diminish in the long run. Using cannabis for sleep can also lead to dependency, he adds.