Basketball player Shaquille O'Neal won three NBA championships (2000, 2001, and 2002) with the Los Angeles Lakers, coached by the “Zen Master” Phil Jackson.

During Shaq's induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016, he credited Jackson with helping him attain a higher level of play.

In fact, he recalled how Jackson would make the players meditate before a game, while some kind of herb burned in the background. “I've never been high before,” O'Neal recounted about asking Jackson if what he was smelling was pot.

Jackson assured him it was not. “It's sage,” he said, “The cousin of cannabis.”

Jackson used burning sage to dispel negative energy. Breathing marijuana smoke does other things.

Several research papers presented at the 2019 Canadian Neuroscience Meeting confirm that adolescents and young adults are highly vulnerable to drug-related disturbances in brain development.

Following almost 4,000 seventh-graders for four years, researchers found that smoking cannabis impairs working memory and recall, control of impulsiveness, and perceptual reasoning.

Other researchers working with lab animals confirmed the same findings: Cannabis causes adolescent rodents to experience deficits in social interactions, memory processing, and anxiety regulation.

Explain to your kids (at any age) that the legalization of marijuana doesn't mean it's smart to smoke it. Weed contained around 4% THC (the psychoactive ingredient) in the 1960s to the 1980s. Today, it delivers 20% or more, which means even more damage to the brain.