Elton John Condemns Marijuana Legalization, but Doesn’t Mention Prohibition’s Harms
In a sign that the times surely are changing, pop music icon Elton John came out against marijuana in a Time magazine interview. Once known as much for his excesses as for his music, the long-rehabbed star regrets not only his own overindulgence, but also legalization efforts that free users from the threat of arrest and imprisonment. While we can appreciate the difficulties of the performer’s own journey, he makes two basic mistakes: he ignores the damage done by prohibition, and he overlooks our right to do what we please without state interference so long as we harm nobody else. Both are serious oversights.
You Make Terrible Decisions on Drugs
“I maintain that it’s addictive. It leads to other drugs,” 77-year-old Elton John commented about marijuana to Time‘s Belinda Luscombe during an interview naming him icon of the year. “And when you’re stoned—and I’ve been stoned—you don’t think normally. Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.”
John suffered through severe drug dependency, which he kicked in rehab, so his personal regrets are understandable. He says that after he started heavily using cocaine and other intoxicants, he belatedly discovered that “you make terrible decisions on drugs.” Worse for the performer: Luscombe notes that “as John became increasingly dependent on drugs, the music got worse.”
Those were excellent reasons for John to go into rehab and kick his dependencies, which he did decades ago. He’s helped other performers, with various degrees of success, battle their own problems with intoxicants. But it’s a leap from his personal problems to attacking reforms that reduce or eliminate legal threats against those who produce, buy, sell, and use marijuana. Whatever harms marijuana use may cause some people—and harm can to be found in excess consumption of anything—pale in comparison to the damage done by efforts to enforce prohibition against a resistant population.
War on Drugs Has Subjected Millions to Criminalization
“Since the declaration of the U.S. drug war, billions of dollars each year have been spent on drug enforcement and punishment because it was made a local, state, and federal priority,” wrote Aliza Cohen, Sheila P. Vakharia, Julie Netherland, and Kassandra Frederique of the Drug Policy Alliance in a 2022 paper published in the Annals of Medicine. “For the past half century, the war on drugs has subjected millions to criminalisation, incarceration, and lifelong criminal records, disrupting or altogether eliminating access to adequate resources and supports to live healthy
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