The Modulating Role of Cannabis in Insomnia: A Review of the Literature

The objective of this study was to carry out a review of the literature covering
the topic of the association between sleep, insomnia and the medicinal use of
cannabis. The guiding question for carrying out this study was whether the
medicinal use of cannabis could have a significant positive impact on reducing
insomnia. To this end, a review of the literature on the topic was prepared,
both in English and Portuguese, from 2005 to 2023, in the PubMed, Scielo and
LILACS databases. To search the databases, the keywords “cannabis”, “cannabidiol”, “tetrahydrocannabinol”, “insomnia” and “endocannabinoid” were
used. In total, the initial search resulted in 17 articles. After a more careful
analysis, only 6 of these articles met the inclusion criteria established for this
study. Thus, it was concluded that, although some studies link the use of medicinal cannabis with an improvement in sleep quality, the current literature
still lacks more studies on the topic.