The stereotype of a stoner often paints a picture of someone scatterbrained and terribly forgetful. While it may be the case that cannabis has an impact on memory, the reality is more nuanced and intriguing.
There are two main categories of memory: short and long-term, which differ in what information is stored and how. Short-term is essentially responsible for storing temporary information and deciding what to do with it: let it go or pass it to our long-term memory, where we store information indefinitely. There is also working memory, a crucial element of short-term memory that plays a big role in how we process, use and remember information on a daily basis. Working memory involves the ability to keep information in our mind for a short time, such as remembering someone’s phone number until you can write it down or directions to a destination that someone told you while stopped at a red light.
“There is no question that acute cannabis use affects working memory,” said Kristen Morie, a researcher at Yale School of Medicine. “If you talk to someone who is actively intoxicated, they will just, kind of, forget their train of thought.”
Researchers attribute cannabis’ memory-impairing effects to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which binds to CB1 receptors in brain regions that are crucial for memory, like the hippocampus. This binding disrupts the encoding of new information, hindering its storage and subsequent retrieval.
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