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I would really like this question answered by a professional as it seems that most of the articles I read online are very heavily biased. Articles on marijuana related sites promote it and say its harmless and on the other hand there are a lot of sites that completely antagonize it.
A completely unbiased technical approach would be great as I truly don't know which articles to believe :)
(I'm especially interested in long-term cognitive effects)
A recent literature review of the evidence regarding long term effects of cannabis (3 weeks or longer since last use) reported:
Cannabis appears to continue to exert impairing effects in executive functions even after 3 weeks of abstinence and beyond. While basic attentional and working memory abilities are largely restored, the most enduring and detectable deficits are seen in decision-making, concept formation and planning. Verbal fluency impairments are somewhat mixed at this stage. Similar to the residual effects of cannabis use, those studies with subjects having chronic, heavy cannabis use show the most enduring deficits.
The complete review is open access and available here:
Crean RD, Crane NA, Mason BJ. An Evidence Based Review of Acute and Long-Term Effects of Cannabis Use on Executive Cognitive Functions. Journal of addiction medicine. 2011;5(1):1-8. doi:10.1097/ADM.0b013e31820c23fa.
