Elton John have thoughts about marijuana legalization in the United States and Canada.
The singer-songwriter was chosen as the Icon of the year 2024 by Time magazine. While speaking to the publication, spoke about his struggles with drug addiction and why he’s not as indifferent to marijuana as many other people.
“I maintain that it is addictive. It leads you to use other drugs. And when you’re high – and I’ve been high – you don’t think normally,” he said. “Legalizing marijuana in the United States and Canada is one of the biggest mistakes of all time.”
He explained that his ideas about legal marijuana come from his experiences with other drugs. Since overcoming his addiction, he said he has helped other people overcome addiction and offered to help many more. According to the magazine, he is the sponsor of Eminemorganized the first stage of rehabilitation of Robbie Williams and tried to help George Michael (without success).
“It’s hard to tell someone they’re being a jerk, and it’s hard to listen to them,” John continued. “In the end I made the decision to admit that I was being an idiot myself.”
Elton John and his cocaine addiction
In another part of the profile, he remembers that his former lover and then manager, John Reidintroduced him to cocaine. At first, he found it liberating and helped him overcome his crippling shyness, but over time, shyness took over.
“When you’re high, you make terrible decisions.”said the interpreter of “Hold Me Closer”. “He wanted love so much that he took hostages. I would see someone I liked and we would spend three or four months together, and then that person would resent me because they had nothing in their life apart from me. “It really bothers me to think about how many people I probably hurt.”
Looking back on his life, John cited three things that helped him decide to quit drugs and alcohol: Watford F.C.a local soccer club near where he grew up; Alcoholics Anonymous; and a teenager named Ryan Whitewho died in 1990, after contracting HIV from a contaminated blood transfusion at the beginning of the AIDS crisis.
“It all came to a head, actually, at Ryan White’s funeral in Indianapolis, a very sad and emotional week, and I went back to the hotel thinking I had gone too far,” he said. “It was a shock to see how far he had fallen on the scale of humanity.”.
Source: Ambito
