current findings suggest, in general, trauma exposure may most strongly impact initiation of cannabis use with diminished associations at more pathological levels of use. Our findings further previous reports by Kevorkian and colleagues (2015) who suggested a graduated relationship between trauma and cannabis involvement. They found any life-time trauma exposure to be significantly associated with cannabis use and PTSD to be associated with CUD with only a marginal relationship between trauma exposure and the more severe cannabis pathology. Although not significant in our analyses, a trend to association between PTSD and transition to a CUD symptom was revealed in both EA and AA women, which is suggestive of a potentially significant relationship. Our findings are consistent with the supposition that cannabis use is initiated following the trauma as a possible means of self-medication to relieve the general distress surrounding a traumatic event (Bonn-Miller et al., 2010, 2007).
