Marijuana effects on the speed of memory retrieval in the letter-matching task.

Marijuana's effect on the speed of retrieving simple information from memory was studied using a task in which subjects saw two letters and decided whether or not they had the same name. Subjects smoked a single marijuana or placebo cigarette under double-blind conditions. Marijuana slowed reaction time relative to placebo, but this effect was not influenced by the demands on memory retrieval or by providing advance information relevant to the required decisions, suggesting that memory retrieval was unimpaired.