Elton john He has strong feelings about marijuana legalization.
Rock star named by Time magazine Icon of the year This week, he spoke to the outlet about his career, which for a while was affected by his addiction to drugs and alcohol. John's experience with addiction led him to take a firm stance against marijuana use.
“I confirm it is addictive,” he said. “It leads to other drugs. When you get stoned – and I was stoned – you don't think normally.”
The singer added: “Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the biggest mistakes ever.”
Elton John 'lost my sight' after contracting a serious infection
Elton John said, “Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the biggest mistakes ever.” (Lester Cohen/Getty Images for City of Hope)
Time magazine reported that when John was asked if he had thoughts similar to alcohol, he paused and looked to husband David Furnish, who was also present at the interview, to help with the answer. Furnish then gave an answer “suggesting that although alcohol is part of the fabric of society, there are studies that find it Much less true “What people think.”
In 1974, the same year John released songs like “Bennie and the Jets” and “Candle in the Wind,” he was introduced to cocaine and eventually became addicted.
Elton John says marijuana “leads to other drugs. And when you get stoned – and I was stoned – you don't think normally.” (Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images for Disney)
“Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the biggest mistakes of all time.”
“You make terrible decisions on drugs,” he recalls. “I wanted love so badly, I was taking hostages. I would see someone I loved and spend three or four months together, and then they would resent me because they didn't have anything in their life but me. It really upset me. I think back to how many people I might have hurt.” “
John's longtime songwriting partner Bernie Taupin also spoke to the outlet, saying, “I felt terrified for him. It was so terrible. A lot of the work we did during the times when he was… At its worst “He wasn't the best of us.”
He added: “I couldn't invest any time creatively into writing material about him until he had already found himself, and then it was easier for me to think about it.”
Elton John performs live on the 141st episode of “Soul Train” on May 17, 1975. The singer has been open about his past cocaine addiction. (Getty Images)
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It was in 1990 when John got clean, and he has maintained his sobriety ever since. In July, he shared a slide for Alcoholics Anonymous with the caption, “34 years old Clean and sober. “My life has never been better.”
“It's hard to tell someone that they're an a**hole, and it's hard to hear that,” he admitted in his interview with Time magazine. “Finally I made the decision to admit that I was just an a**hole.”
The singer said in July that he had been “clean and sober” for 34 years and that his “life has never been better.” (Getty Images)
Later in the interview, John touched on sobriety again, beginning his statement by saying, “I've never lost the excitement of buying a new record, a new book, or a new picture.”
He went on to say that given the choice between never being able to play music again or never being able to listen to it, he would give up playing, saying that listening to music was what “kept me going.”
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John explained, “I don't really believe in the God of the Bible that much, however I have faith. My higher power has been taking care of me my whole life; He beat the drugs, he beat the depression, he beat the loneliness, and he got me sober. It was there the whole time, I think. I just didn't acknowledge it.”
Elton John has two sons, Elijah and Zachary, with husband David Furnish. (Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)
He and Furnish have two sons, Zachary, born in 2010, and Elijah, born in 2013. He told TIME that if he had the opportunity to give them his talent and the fame that came with it, he wouldn't do it.
“I lived an incredible life, but it was hell, and it was hard,” he said. “I don't want that much pressure on them.”
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“If people remember that we tried to change the world a little bit, and we were kind, and we tried to help people,” he said, that would be good enough for him. “And then, apart from that, there was the music.”
