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At the tail end of an interview with Time magazine for his Icon of the Year story, Elton John dropped a bomb: “Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.”
It was preceded by this comment: “I maintain that it’s addictive. It leads to other drugs. And when you’re stoned — and I’ve been stoned — you don’t think normally.”
Media outlets picked it up right away, including my website CelebStoner. Music fans immediately panned John’s statements, noting his past as a cocaine addict, which he acknowledged in the interview.
“Shame on him,” wrote one fan on Facebook. “Legal weed frees up cops to fight real crime.”
The 360’s singer Audrey Clark opined, “Big mistake. He needs to smoke a blunt.”
New Jersey activist Edward Grimes pointed out, “Those pesky laws don’t affect you when you’re a billionaire with pasty white privilege.”
Meanwhile, Keith Saunders of NORML (the organization dedicated to reforming marijuana laws) joked, “So THAT’s why he never did a reggae song.”
In 2020, John discussed the occasion when he was “smoking a joint and listening to [Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express] on really loud speakers” and thought he saw God. But now John’s singing a different tune about cannabis, which never caused him to overdose like he did on cocaine in 1975 (as was depicted in the John biopic Rocketman).
John’s contention that cannabis is a gateway to drugs like cocaine and heroin has been debunked many times. According to Healthline, “While many people do use cannabis before using other substances, that alone isn’t proof that cannabis use caused them to do other drugs. One idea is that cannabis — like alcohol and nicotine — is generally easier to access and afford than other substances. So, if someone is going to do them, they’ll probably start with cannabis.”
At the same time, the “California sober” approach, where cannabis is used as an “exit drug” to help those battling substance abuse taper off from more powerful opiates and the like, has gained traction in recent years, as has the movement to reclassify cannabis federally from a Schedule I narcotic — defined as drugs “that have a high potential for abuse and no medical use in the U.S.” — alongside heroin and fentanyl, to Schedule III, which is more appropriate to the times and would eliminate the state-federal divide when it comes criminal charges for possession or use.
As for John’s claim that marijuana legalization “is one of the greatest mistakes of all time,” that’s hard to fathom. Would John prefer people continue to go to jail for pot? He never was caught, never had a mug shot or spent time in in a cell. He’s a privileged rock star who was lucky to survive the ’70s and ’80s, unlike some of his colleagues. One could also argue that more than half of America disagrees: 38 states have decriminalized cannabis for medical use; 24 allow for recreational use — laws voted in by residents.
In his 2012 book Love Is the Cure, John wrote: “I was so ignorant about drugs and so naive. I mean, my band was smoking marijuana for years; I didn’t even know what a joint was. And I’d never seen a line of cocaine in my life, and I don’t know whether it’s bravado, or, ‘OK, I’ll join in,’ but, [in] my stupidity, I had a line of coke and that started the whole process… I always said cocaine was the drug that made me open up. I could talk to people. But then it became the drug that closed me down, because the last two weeks of my use of cocaine I spent in a room in London, using it and not coming out for two weeks. And it completely shut me down.”
In the Time interview, he also commented: “You make terrible decisions on drugs. It really upsets me, thinking back on how many people I probably hurt.”
His co-songwriter Bernie Taupin told Time, “I was terrified for him. It was absolutely horrible. A lot of the work that we did in the times when he was at his worst wasn’t the best of both of us. I wasn’t able to creatively invest any time in writing material that related to him until he actually found himself, and then it was easier for me to reflect upon it.”
Taupin, who has spoken about his own drug problems, might have been referring to songs like the peppy 1977 disco number, “Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance).”
In 1990, John sought treatment at Lutheran General Hospital in Illinois for drug, alcohol and food addictions and later joined Alcoholics Anonymous. He’s been sober ever since.
With John, now 77, no longer touring and suffering from sudden blindness due to an eye infection, you’d think he might lighten up about cannabis, which is known to help people with glaucoma, or be inclined to light one up and give it another try.
Steve Bloom is the founder of CelebStoner.
