The relationships of 'ecstasy' (MDMA) and cannabis use to impaired executive inhibition and access to semantic long-term memory.

This study aimed to examine the relationship between the consumption of ecstasy (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)) and cannabis, and performance on the random letter generation task which generates dependent variables drawing upon executive inhibition and access to semantic long-term memory (LTM). The participant group was a between-participant independent variable with users of both ecstasy and cannabis (E/C group, n = 15), users of cannabis but not ecstasy (CA group, n = 13) and controls with no exposure to these drugs (CO group, n = 12). Dependent variables measured violations of randomness: number of repeat sequences, number of alphabetical sequences (both drawing upon inhibition) and redundancy (drawing upon access to semantic LTM).