MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- For adults with insomnia, medical cannabis seems to have little to no clinically meaningful effect on quality of sleep, total sleep time, or daytime functioning, according to a study published online Oct. 13 in the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews.
Lucia B. Varela, M.D., from Universidad Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires in Argentina, and colleagues examined the benefits and harms of medical cannabis in adults with insomnia. Parallel randomized controlled trials (RCTs), cross-over RCTs, and cluster RCTs conducted in adults with any type of insomnia were included. The studies compared medical cannabis with placebo, benzodiazepine receptor agonists, benzodiazepines, melatonin receptor agonists, antidepressants, and antipsychotics. Nine studies were included with 537 participants aged 18 to 76 years (72.66 percent female); most studies focused on primary insomnia, with one focusing on insomnia associated with comorbidities.
The researchers found that compared with placebo, medical cannabis may have little to no clinically meaningful effect on the quality of sleep/satisfaction with sleep, total sleep time, and daytime functioning but may improve quality of life, although the evidence is very uncertain. A slight increase in adverse events may result from medical cannabis use.
"The main message is that the research currently available is not sufficient to reliably answer whether medical cannabis helps people with insomnia," Varela said in a statement. "This does not mean that medical cannabis is ineffective. It means that, based on the evidence we have, we cannot draw reliable conclusions about its effectiveness for insomnia in the general population."
