Gemma Speck

It just gets held in short term working memory.

It never gets converted into short and then long term.

This is why people who are high often lose track of a conversation.

They may struggle to hold on to new information.

They may struggle to problem solve in the moment or get things done because working memory is so, so short.

The storage time is very, there is not much storage time at all.

So it's hard to cram everything in there when the influence of THC and of weed in general is disrupting the consolidation of memories needed for short term and long term memory.

In the long term, oh my god, I feel like I've said long term, short term, memory, all those things a million times, but in the long term, research from 2025 that looked at a sample of over a thousand adults aged 22 to 36 found that heavy lifetime cannabis use is associated with lower brain activation during working memory tasks.

And this association remains even in individuals who hadn't necessarily smoked recently or

Oh, heavily recently.

So it suggests that, you know, the impact and effects of weed on cognitive function, even after you quit, even after you taper down, can be long lasting.

Despite reducing slowly over time, you may still feel that your brain is different.

our brain does have an amazing and incredible capacity to rewire and restore itself so it's not to say like if the damage is done you may as well keep going like you're never going to get a certain level of brain functioning back but it is just like important to to recognize that if you're sitting here being like

I do notice differences.

I don't know if I'm performing at my best to know that like, yeah, that's probably correct.

There is danger to how your brain functions that you should be aware of.

At the same time, there is some evidence to the contrary for when weed, specifically medical cannabis, is used for medicinal purposes.

Purposes, one of the largest ever longitudinal observational studies on the effect of medical cannabis on individuals, followed participants over a two year period and it assessed them before they started using and then at three months, six months, 12, 15, 18 and 24 months.

Even after a few times, even at the three-month mark, patients actually performed better in particular cognitive tasks that required executive functioning.

So we're seeing a different pattern.