The music icon says he believes it’s “addictive” and “leads to other drugs”
Elton John criticized the legalization of marijuana, saying it’s “addictive” and impairs cognitive thinking.
“I maintain that it’s addictive. It leads to other drugs,” John, who was named Icon of the Year by Time Magazine, told the outlet. “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, 77, looked back on his own experiences with drugs, saying that cocaine was his drug of choice after being introduced to the narcotic by former manager and lover John Reid. Following the death of his friend Ryan White, who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion, John checked into Chicago’s Parkside Lutheran Hospital on July 29, 1990 — and has remained sober ever since.
“It all came to a climax, really, at the Ryan White funeral in Indianapolis — a really sad and emotional week — and I came back to the hotel thinking I’m just so out of line,” John told Time. “It was a shock to see how far down the scale of humanity I’d fallen.”
“You make terrible decisions on drugs,” John explained. “I wanted love so badly, I’d just take hostages. I’d see someone I liked and spend three or four months together, and then they would resent me because they had nothing in their life apart from me. It really upsets me, thinking back on how many people I probably hurt.”
Now sober, John has helped others kick the habit. He reached out to support Boy George’s sobriety journey, and as he revealed in his 2019 memoir, Me, John is friend and collaborator Eminem’s Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor.
Eminem/X
Elton John with friend and collaborator Eminem.
The outlet reports he also tried to help George Michael, who died on Christmas Day in 2016 of heart disease and fatty liver, which can be caused by alcohol abuse.
“It’s tough to tell someone that they’re being an a—hole, and it’s tough to hear,” he says, saying that when it came to getting sober, “Eventually I made the choice to admit that I’m being an a—hole.”
